HERITAGE 


V.  SACKVILLE  WEST 


HERITAGE 


"  I  was  born,  and  learned  myne  English  in  Rente, 
m  the  Weald,  where  English  is  spoken  broad  and 

rude"  WILLIAM  CAXTON. 


HERITAGE 

BY 

V.    SACKV1LLE   WEST 


NEW  XSJr    YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  1919, 
BY  GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


PRINTED  IN  THB   UNITED  STATES  OP  AMERICA 


TO 
MY    MOTHER 


<*  I  n  k! 


Haec  super  arvorum  cultu  pecorumque  canebam, 
Et  super  arboribus,  Ccesar  dum  magnus  ad  altum 
Fulminat  Euphraten  bello: 
Carmina  qui  lusi  pastorum,  audaxque  juventa, 
Tit y re,  te  patulae  cecini  sub  tegmine  fagi* 


HERITAGE 


PART  I 
I 

Two  years  of  my  life  were  spent  in  a  rough 
gray  village  of  the  Apennines;  a  shaggy  vil- 
lage, tilted  perilously  up  the  side  of  the  hill; 
a  rambling  village,  too  incoherent  to  form  a 
single  perspectived  street,  but  which  revolved 
around,  or,  rather,  above  and  below,  a  little 
piazza  warm  with  present  sun,  though  grim 
with  unknown,  conjectured  violence  in  the 
past.  Here  stood  the  massive  civic  palace, 
ancient  and  forbidding,  with  its  tower  poised 
and  tremulous  in  the  evening  sky;  and  here 
the  church,  with  its  marble  pieta,  the  work,  it 
was  said,  of  Mino  da  Fiesole.  A  mountain 
torrent  poured  down  the  village,  a  wild  little 
storm  of  water,  brown  and  white,  spanned  by 

11 


i  HERITAGE 

a  bridge,  which  rose  abruptly  to  a  peak,  and 
as  abruptly  descended.  In  the  evenings  the 
youth  of  the  village  drifted  towards  the 
bridge,  gossiped  there,  sang  a  snatch  of  song, 
or  indolently  fished.  In  the  silent  midday, 
stretched  at  length  on  the  flat  stone  parapet, 
they  slept.  .  .  . 

The  village  was  called  Sampiero  della 
Vigna  Vecchia. 

If  I  dwell  thus  upon  its  characteristics,  it  is 
from  lingering  affection  and  melancholy 
memories.  My  sentiment  is  personal;  ir- 
relevant to  my  present  purpose.  I  re- 
sume:— 

In  this  village — and  it  is  for  this  reason 
that  the  village  started  up  so  irrepressibly  in 
my  thoughts — I  had  as  a  companion  a  man 
named  Malory.  Like  me,  he  was  there  to 
study  Italian.  We  were  not  friends;  we 
lodged  in  the  same  house,  and  a  certain  de- 
gree of  intimacy  had  thereby  necessarily 
forced  itself  upon  us ;  but  we  were  not  friends. 
I  cannot  tell  you  why.  No  quarrel  stood  be- 
tween us.  I  liked  him ;  I  believe  he  liked  me. 
But  we  were  each  conscious  that  our  last  day 
in  Sampiero  would  also  be  the  last  day  we 
spent  together.  No  pleasant  anticipation  of 


HERITAGE  13 

continued  friendship  in  our  own  country  came 
to  sweeten  our  student  days  in  Italy. 

Yet  for  one  week  in  those  two  years  Malory 
and  I  were  linked  by  the  thread  of  a  story  he 
told  me,  sitting  out  under  a  clump  of  stone- 
pines  overlooking  the  village.  It  linked  us, 
indeed,  not  for  that  week  alone,  but,  though 
interruptedly  and  at  long  intervals,  for  many 
years  out  of  our  lives.  Neither  of  us  foresaw 
at  the  time  the  far-reaching  sequel  of  his  con- 
fidences. He,  when  he  told  me  the  story, 
thought  that  he  was  telling  me  a  completed 
thing,  an  incident  revived  in  its  entirety  out 
of  the  past;  I,  when  I  later  went  to  investi- 
gate for  myself,  went  with  no  thought  of 
continuance;  and  finally,  I,  when  I  de- 
parted, did  so  in  the  belief  that  the  ulti- 
mate word  was  spoken.  Our  error,  I  sup- 
pose, arose  from  our  delusion  that  in  this 
affair,  which  we  considered  peculiarly  our 
own,  we  held  in  some  measure  the  levers  of 
control.  Our  conceit,  I  see  it  now,  was  ab- 
surd. We  were  dealing  with  a  force  capricious, 
incalculable,  surprising,  a  force  that  lurked  at 
the  roots  of  nature,  baffling  alike  the  onlooker 
and  the  subject  whose  vagaries  it  prompted. 

I  should  like  to  explain  here  that  those  who 


14*  HERITAGE 

look  for  facts  and  events  as  the  central  points 
of  significance  in  a  tale,  will  be  disappointed. 
On  the  other  hand,  I  may  fall  upon  an  audi- 
ence which,  like  myself,  contend  that  the 
vitality  of  human  beings  is  to  be  judged  less 
by  their  achievement  than  by  their  endeavour, 
by  the  force  of  their  emotion  rather  than  by 
their  success ;  if  this  is  my  lot  I  shall  be  fortu- 
nate. Indeed,  my  difficulty  throughout  has 
been  that  I  laboured  with  stones  too  heavy 
for  my  strength,  and  tried  to  pierce  through 
veils  too  opaque  for  my  feeble  eyes.  Little 
of  any  moment  occurs  in  my  story,  yet  behind 
it  all  I  am  aware  of  tremendous  forces  at 
work,  which  none  have  rightly  understood, 
neither  the  actors  nor  the  onlookers. 

It  was  less  of  a  story  that  Malory  told  me, 
than  a  quiet  meditative  reminiscence,  and  he 
wove  into  it  a  great  deal  which,  I  begin  to 
suspect,  as  I  think  over  it,  without  extracting 
from  my  granary  of  words  and  impressions 
any  very  definite  image,  was  little  more  than 
the  fleeting  phantom  of  his  own  personality. 
I  could  wish  that  fate  had  been  a  little 
kinder  to  me  in  regard  to  Malory.  I  am 
sure  now  that  he  was  a  man  in  whom  I  could 
have  rejoiced  as  a  friend. 


HERITAGE  15 

When  I  think  of  him  now,  he  stands  for 
me  as  the  type  of  the  theorist,  who,  when 
confronted  with  realities,  strays  helplessly 
from  the  road.  He  had  theories  about  love, 
but  he  passed  love  by  unseen;  theories  about 
humour,  but  was  himself  an  essentially  un- 
humorous  man;  theories  about  friendship 
between  men,  but  was  himself  the  loneliest 
being  upon  earth.  At  the  same  time,  I 
sometimes  think  that  he  had  something  akin 
to  greatness  in  him;  a  wide  horizon,  and  a 
generous  sweep  of  mind.  But  I  may  be 
mistaking  mere  earnestness  for  force,  and  in 
any  case  I  had  better  let  the  man  speak  for 
himself. 

He  said  to  me  as  we  smoked,  "Do  you 
know  the  Weald  of  Kent?"  and  as  he  spoke 
he  indicated  with  his  pipe  stem  a  broad  half- 
circle,  and  I  had  a  glimpse  of  flattened 
country  lying  in  such  a  half-circle  beneath 
my  view. 

His  words  gave  me  a  strong  emotional 
shock;  from  those  gaunt  mountains,  that 
clattering  stream,  I  was  suddenly  projected 
into  a  world  of  apple-blossom  and  other 
delicate  things.  The  mountains  vanished; 
the  herd  of  goats,  which  moved  near  us 


16  HERITAGE 

cropping  at  the  scant  but  faintly  aromatic 
grass  of  the  hill-side,  vanished;  and  in  their 
place  stood  placid  cows,  slowly  chewing  the 
cud  in  lush  English  meadows. 

"I  fancied  once  that  I  would  take  up 
farming  as  a  profession,"  said  Malory.  "I 
have  touched  and  dropped  many  occupa- 
tions in  my  life,"  and  I  realised  then  that 
never  before  in  the  now  eighteen  months  of 
our  acquaintance  had  he  made  to  me  a 
remark  even  so  remotely  personal.  "Many 
occupations,  that  have  all  fallen  from  me, 
or  I  from  them.  I  am  an  inconstant  man, 
knowing  that  no  love  can  hold  me  long. 
Perhaps  that  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  I 
have  never  married.  Such  people  should 
not  marry,  or,  if  they  do,  should  at  least 
choose  a  partner  as  inconstant  as  themselves. 
When  I  say  inconstant,  I  mean  of  course 
the  temperamentally,  not  the  accidentally, 
inconstant.  It  is  a  new  kind  of  eugenics,  a 
sort  of  moral  eugenics. 

"So  at  one  period  of  my  life  I  had  a 
fancy  that  I  would  try  my  hand  at  farming. 
I  think  perhaps  it  was  one  of  my  most  suc- 
cessful experiments.  I  have  a  great  love  for 
the  country  people;  they  are  to  me  like  the 


HERITAGE  17 

oaks  of  the  land,  enduring  and  indigenous, 
beautiful  with  the  beauty  of  strong,  deep- 
rooted  things,  without  intention  of  change. 
I  love  in  them  the  store  of  country  knowl- 
edge which  they  distil  as  resin  from  a  pine, 
in  natural  order,  with  the  revolving  seasons. 
I  love  the  unconsciousness  of  them,  as  they 
move  unheeding,  bent  only  on  the  practical 
business  of  their  craft.  I  revere  the  sim- 
plicity of  their  traditional  ideals.  Above 
all,  I  envy  them  the  balance  and  the  sta- 
bility of  their  lives." 

I  wasn't  very  much  surprised;  I  had 
always  thought  him  a  dreamy,  sensitive  sort 
of  fellow.  I  said, — 

"But  you  surely  don't  want  to  change 
with  them?" 

Malory  smiled. 

"Don't  I?  Well,  perhaps  I  don't.  I 
should  have  to  give  up  my  sense  of  wonder- 
ment, for  they  have  none.  They  may  be 
poems,  but  they  are  not  poets.  The  people 
among  whom  I  lived  were  true  yeomen;  they 
and  their  forefathers  had  held  the  house  and 
tilled  the  land  for  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years  or  more,  since  the  Puritan  founder  of 
their  race  had  received  the  grant  from,  so 


18  HERITAGE 

tradition  said,  the  hands  of  Cromwell  '  in 
person.  Since  the  days  of  that  grim  Iron- 
side, one  son  at  least  in  the  family  had  been 
named  Oliver. 

"The  house  was  partly  built  of  lath  and 
plaster  and  partly  of  that  gray  stone  called 
Kentish  rag,  which  must  have  been,  I  used 
to  reflect  with  satisfaction,  hewn  out  of  the 
very  land  on  which  the  house  was  set.  I 
remember  how  the  thought  pleased  me,  that 
no  exotic  importation  had  gone  to  the  mak- 
ing of  that  English,  English  whole.  No 
brilliant  colour  in  that  dun  monochrome, 
save  one,  of  which  I  will  tell  you  presently. 
Have  patience,  for  the  leisure  of  those  days 
comes  stealing  once  more  over  me,  when 
haste  was  a  stranger,  and  men  took  upon 
them  the  unhurrying  calm  of  their  beasts. 

"After  the  fashion  of  such  homes,  the 
house  stood  back  from  a  narrow  lane;  a  low 
stone  wall  formed  a  kind  of  forecourt,  which 
was  filled  with  flowers,  and  a  flagged  path 
bordered  with  lavender  lay  stretched  from 
the  little  swing-gate  to  the  door.  The  steps 
were  rounded  with  the  constant  passing  of 
many  feet.  The  eaves  were  wide,  and  in 
them  the  martins  nested  year  after  year;  the 


HERITAGE  19 

steep  tiled  roofs,  red-brown  with  age,  and 
gold-spattered  with  stonecrops,  rose  sharply 
up  to  the  chimney-stacks.  You  have  seen 
it  all  a  hundred  times.  Do  you  know  how 
such  houses  crouch  down  into  their  hollows? 
So  near,  so  near  to  the  warm  earth.  Earth! 
there's  nothing  like  it;  lying  on  it,  being 
close  to  it,  smelling  it,  and  smelling  all  the 
country  smells  as  well,  not  honeysuckle  and 
roses,  but  the  clean,  acrid  smell  of  animals, 
horses,  dogs,  and  cattle,  and  the  smell  of 
ripe  fruit,  and  of  cut  hay. 

"And  there's  something  of  the  Noah's 
Ark  about  a  farm;  there's  Mr.  Noah,  Mrs. 
Noah,  and  Shem,  Ham,  and  Japhet,  and 
the  animals,  because  there's  nothing  in  the 
world  more  like  the  familiar  wooden  figures 
of  our  childhood  than  the  domestic  animals. 
If  you  had  never  seen  a  cow  before,  gaunt 
and  unwieldy,  what  a  preposterous  beast 
you  would  think  it.  Also  a  sheep — the  liv- 
ing sheep  is,  if  anything,  even  more  like  the 
woolly  toy  than  the  woolly  toy  is  like  the 
living  sheep.  And  they  all  fit  in  so  neatly, 
so  warmly,  just  like  the  Noah's  Ark.  How- 
ever, I  won't  labour  the  point.  .  .  . 

"This  house  of  which  I  am  telling  you  was 


20  HERITAGE 

nearer  to  the  earth  than  most;  it  had,  in 
fact,  subsided  right  down  into  it,  sinking 
from  north  to  south  with  the  settling  of  the 
clay,  and  the  resultant  appearance  of  estab- 
lished comfort  was  greater  than  I  can 
describe  to  you.  The  irregularity  of  the 
building  was  the  more  apparent  by  reason 
of  the  oak  beams,  which  should  have  been 
horizontal,  but  which  actually  sloped  at  a 
considerable  angle.  I  found,  after  I  had 
lived  there  no  more  than  a  couple  of  days, 
that  one  adopted  this  architectural  irregu- 
larity into  one's  scheme  of  life;  the  furniture 
was  propped  up  by  blocks  of  wood  on  the 
south  side,  and  I  learnt  not  to  drop  round 
objects  on  to  my  floor,  knowing  that  if  I 
did  so  they  would  roll  speedily  out  of  reach. 
For  the  same  reason,  all  the  children  of  the 
house,  in  this  generation  as  no  doubt  in  many 
generations  past,  had  made  their  first  uncer- 
tain steps  out  in  the  garden  before  they 
climbed  the  hill  or  toppled  down  the  incline 
of  their  mother's  room. 

"I  paused,  on  the  evening  of  my  arrival, 
before  my  future  home.  I  said  to  myself, 
here  I  shall  live  for  one,  two,  three,  possibly 
four,  years;  how  familiar  will  be  that  unfa- 


HERITAGE  21 

miliar  gate;  I  arrive  with  curiosity,  I  shall 
leave,  I  hope,  with  regret.  And  I  foresaw 
myself  leaving,  and  my  eyes  travelling 
yearningly  over  the  house  and  the  little 
garden,  which  in  a  moment  the  bend  of  the 
lane  would  hide  from  me  for  ever.  I  say 
for  ever,  for  I  would  not  court  the  disillu- 
sion of  returning  to  a  once  happy  home. 
Then,  as  my  eyes  began  to  sting  with  the 
prophetic  sorrow  of  departure,  I  remembered 
that  my  one,  two,  three,  or  possibly  four, 
years  were  before  and  not  behind  me;  so, 
amused  at  my  own  sensibility,  I  pushed 
open  the  swing-gate  and  went  in. 

"The  house  door  opened  to  my  knock.  I 
stood  on  the  threshold — I  stand  there  now 
in  spirit.  Have  you  experienced  the  thrill 
of  excitement  which  overcomes  one  when 
one  stands  on  the  threshold  of  new  friend- 
ship, new  intimacy?  such  a  thrill  as  over- 
came me  now  as  I  stood,  literally  and 
figuratively,  in  the  doorway  of  the  Pen- 
nistans'  home.  I  scanned  the  faces  which 
were  raised  towards  me,  faces  which  were 
to  me  then  as  masks,  or  as  books  written  in 
a  language  I  could  not  read,  but  which 
would  speedily  become  open  and  speaking; 


22  HERITAGE 

no  longer  the  disguise,  but  the  revelation  of 
the  human  passion  which  lay  behind.  The 
facts  of  life  at  Pennistans'  I  could  foresee, 
but  not  the  life  of  the  spirit,  the  mazy  wind- 
ings of  mutual  relation,  the  circumstance  of 
individual  being.  These  people  were  anony- 
mous to  me  in  their  spirits  as  in  their  names. 

"You  might  fare  far  before  you  came 
upon  a  better-favoured  family.  I  was  in  the 
low,  red-tiled  kitchen;  they  were  seated  at 
their  supper  round  a  central  table,  the 
father,  the  mother,  three  sons,  and  the 
daughter  Nancy.  Amos  Pennistan  had  the 
bearing,  the  gravity,  and  the  beard  of  an 
apostle;  I  never  saw  a  nobler  looking  man; 
he  had  his  coat  off,  and  his  scarlet  braces 
marked  his  shirt  like  a  slash  of  blood.  His 
sons,  as  they  raised  their  heads  to  me  from 
their  bread  and  porridge,  cast  their  eyes  over 
my  city-bred  frame,  much  as  calves  in  a 
field  raise  their  heads  to  stare  at  the  passer-by 
over  the  hedge,  and  I  felt  myself  in  the 
presence  of  young,  indifferent  animals. 

"An  old,  old  woman  was  sitting  over  the 
fire.  No  mention  of  her  had  been  made  in 
our  correspondence,  nor  did  I  then  know 
who  she  was.  Yet  had  it  not  been  for  her, 


HERITAGE  23 

and  for  the  strange  flame  she  had  introduced 
into  this  English  home,  the  story  I  am 
endeavouring  to  tell  you  might  never  have 
sprung  up  out  of  the  grayness  of  common- 
place. 

"The  faintest  smell  floated  about  the 
room,  and  as  I  stood  in  slight  bewilderment 
looking  round  I  wondered  what  it  could  be; 
it  was  oddly  familiar;  it  transported  me,  by 
one  of  those  side-slips  of  the  brain,  away 
from  England,  and  though  the  vision  was 
too  dim  and  transitory  for  me  to  crystallise 
it  into  a  definite  picture,  I  dreamed  myself 
for  a  second  in  a  narrow  street  between 
close,  towering  houses;  yoked  bullocks  were 
there  somewhere,  and  the  clamour  of  a 
Latin  city.  I  have  gazed  at  a  rainbow,  and 
fancied  I  caught  a  violet  ribbon  between  the 
red  and  the  blue;  gazed  again,  and  it  was 
gone;  so  with  my  present  illusion.  Then  I 
saw  that  the  old  woman  was  fingering  some- 
thing by  the  fire,  and  in  my  interest  I 
looked,  and  made  out  a  row  of  chestnuts  on 
the  rail;  one  of  them  cracked  and  spat,  falling 
on  to  the  hearth,  where  she  retrieved  it  with 
the  tongs  and  set  it  on  the  rail  again  to 
roast. 


24  HERITAGE 

"The  bullock-like  sons  took  no  notice  of 
me  beyond  their  first  dispassionate  glance, 
but  Mrs.  Pennistan  in  her  buxom,  and  Amos 
in  his  reticent,  fashion  gave  me  an  hospitable 
welcome.  I  was  strongly  conscious  of  the 
taciturn  sons,  who,  after  a  grudging  shuffle 
— a  concession,  I  suppose,  to  my  quality  as 
a  stranger — returned  to  their  meal  in  unin- 
terested silence.  I  was  abashed  by  the  con- 
tempt of  the  young  men.  It  was  a  relief  to 
me  when  one  of  them  pushed  aside  his  bowl 
and  rose,  saying,  'I'll  be  seeing  to  the 
cattle,  father.' 

"Amos  replied,  'Ay,  do,  and  see  to  the 
window  in  the  hovel;  remember  it's  shaky 
on  the  hinge.'  I  had  a  sudden  sense  of 
intimacy:  a  day,  a  week,  and  I  too 
should  know  the  shaky  hinge,  the  abiding 
place  of  tools,  the  peculiarities  of  the  pig- 
gery. 

"I  wandered  out.  A  mist  lay  over  the 
gentle  hills,  as  the  bloom  lies  on  a  grape;  a 
great  stillness  sank  over  the  meadows,  and 
that  mellow  melancholy  of  the  English 
autumn  floated  towards  me  on  the  wings  of 
the  evening.  I  felt  infinitely  at  peace.  I 
reflected  with  a  deep  satisfaction  that  no  soul 


HERITAGE  25 

in  London  knew  my  address.  My  bank,  my 
solicitors,  would  be  extremely  annoyed  when 
they  discovered  that  they  had  mislaid  me. 
To  me  there  was  a  certain  satisfaction  in 
that  thought  also." 

"On  the  following  morning,"  continued 
Malory,  "I  rose  early.  I  went  out.  The 
freshness  of  this  Kentish  morning  was  a 
thing  new  to  me.  The  ground,  the  air, 
were  wet  with  dew;  gossamer  was  over  all 
the  grass  and  hedges,  shreds  of  gossamer 
linking  bramble  to  bramble,  perfect  spiders' 
webs  of  gossamer,  and  a  veil  of  gossamer 
seemed  to  hang  between  the  earth  and  the 
sun.  The  grass  in  the  field  was  gray  with 
wet.  A  darker  trail  across  it  showed  me 
where  the  cattle  had  passed,  as  though  some 
phantom  sweeper  had  swept  with  a  giant 
broom  against  the  pile  of  a  velvet  carpet. 
The  peculiar  light  of  sunrise  still  clung 
about  the  land." 

For  a  moment  Malory  ceased  speaking, 
and  the  goats,  the  barren  mountains,  the 
impetuous  torrent,  rushed  again  into  my 
vision  like  a  wrong  magic-lantern  slide 
thrown  suddenly,  and  in  error,  upon  the 
screen.  Then  as  his  voice  resumed  I  saw 


26  HERITAGE 

once  more  the  hedges,  the  clump  of  oaks, 
and  the  darker  trail  where  the  cattle  had 
passed  across  the  field. 

"I  was  at  a  loss,"  said  Malory,  "  to  know 
how  to  employ  my  morning,  and  regretted 
my  stipulation  that  my  training  should  not 
begin  until  the  following  day.  I  wished  for 
a  pitchfork  in  my  hand,  that  I  might  carry 
the  crisp  bracken  for  bedding  into  the  empty 
stalls.  I  heard  somewhere  a  girl's  voice 
singing;  the  voice,  I  later  discovered,  of 
Nancy,  upraised  in  a  then  popular  song 
which  began,  'Oh,  I  do  love  to  be  beside 
the  sea-side,'  and  so  often  subsequently  did 
I  hear  this  song  that  it  is  for  ever  associated 
in  my  mind  with  Nancy.  I  could  hear 
somewhere  also  the  clank  of  harness,  and 
presently  one  of  the  sons  came  from  the 
stable,  sitting  sideways  upon  a  great  shire 
horse  and  followed  by  two  other  horses; 
they  passed  me  by  with  the  heavy,  swinging 
gait  of  elephants,  out  into  the  lane  where 
they  disappeared,  leaving  me  to  my  lone- 
liness. I  felt  that  the  great  fat  ball  of  the 
world  was  rolling,  rolling  in  the  limpidity 
of  the  morning,  and  that  I  alone  had  given 
no  helping  push. 


HERITAGE  27 

"I  wandered,  stepping  gingerly  upon  the 
cobble  stones,  round  the  corner  of  the  farm 
buildings,  and  there,  in  a  doorway,  I  came 
unexpectedly  upon  a  girl  I  had  not  previ- 
ously seen.  She  stood  with  a  wooden  yoke 
across  her  shoulders,  and  her  hands  upon 
the  two  pendent  buckets  of  milk.  I  felt 
myself — do  not  misunderstand  me — suddenly 
and  poignantly  conscious  of  her  sex.  The 
blue  linen  dress  she  wore  clung  unashamedly 
to  every  curve  of  her  young  and  boyish 
figure,  and  around  the  sleeves  the  sweat  had 
stained  the  linen  to  a  widening  circle  of 
darker  blue.  Swarthy  as  a  gipsy,  I  saw  her 
instinctively  as  a  mother,  with  a  child  in  her 
arms,  and  other  children  clinging  about  her 
skirts." 

I  thought  I  understood  Malory,  a  lyre 
whose  neurotic  treble  alone  had  hitherto 
responded  to  the  playing  of  his  dilettantism, 
with  the  chords  of  the  bass  suddenly  stirred 
and  awakened. 

"You  have  probably  known  in  your  life 
one  or  more  of  those  impressions  so  power- 
ful as  to  amount  to  emotions,  an  impres- 
sion such  as  I  received  now,  as,  at  a  loss  for 
words,  this  girl  and  I  stood  facing  one 


28  HERITAGE 

another.  I  knew,  I  knew"  said  Malory, 
looking  earnestly  at  me  as  though  driving 
his  meaning  by  force  of  suggestion  into  my 
brain,  "  that  here  stood  one  for  whom  lay 
in  wait  no  ordinary  destiny.  She  might  be 
common,  she  might  be,  probably  was,  rude 
and  uncultivated,  nevertheless  something  in 
her  past  was  preparing  a  formidable  some- 
thing for  her  future." 

As  he  spoke  I  thought  that,  by  the  look 
on  his  face,  he  was  again  receiving  what  he 
described  as  an  impression  so  powerful  as 
to  amount  to  an  emotion.  And  he  com- 
municated this  emotion  to  me,  so  that  I  felt 
his  prophecy  to  be  a  true  one,  and  that  his 
story  would  henceforward  cease  to  be  a  me~e 
story  and  would  become  a  simple  unwinding 
off  the  spool  of  inevitable  truth. 

He  went  on, — 

"Our  silence  of  course  couldn't  endure 
for  ever.  The  girl  herself  seemed  conscious 
of  this,  for  a  smile,  not  unfriendly,  came  to 
her  lips,  and  she  said  quite  simply, — 

"  'How  you  startled  me !     Good-morning/ 

"  'I  am  very  sorry,'  I  said.  'Can't  I 
make  up  for  it  by  carrying  those  buckets 
for  you?' 


HERITAGE  29 

"  'Oh,  they're  nothing  with  the  yoke,'  she 
answered. 

"Here  old  Amos  came  round  the  corner, 
walking  clumsily  on  the  cobbles  with  his  hob- 
nailed boots.  He  looked  surprised  to  find 
me  standing  with  the  dairymaid,  a  little 
group  of  two. 

"  'Morning!'  he  cried  very  heartily  to  me. 
'You're  out  betimes.  Fine  day,  sir,  fine 
day,  fine  day.  Well,  my  girl,  done  with 
the  cows?' 

"  'I'm  on  my  way  to  the  dairy,  dad,'  she 
said. 

"I  asked  if  I  might  come  with  her. 

"'Ay,  go  with  Ruth,'  said  Amos,  'she'll 
show  you  round,'  and  he  went  off,  evidently 
glad  to  have  shifted  the  responsibility  of  my 
morning's  entertainment. 

"Ruth  refused  to  let  me  carry  the  buckets, 
and  by  the  time  we  reached  the  dairy — 
one  of  the  pleasantest  places  I  ever  was  in, 
clean  and  bright  as  a  yacht — their  weight 
had  brought  a  warm  flush  of  colour  to  her 
cheeks.  Great  flat  pans  of  milk  stood 
on  gray  slate  slabs,  covered  over  with 
filmy  butter-muslin;  in  one  corner  was 
fixed  a  sink,  and  in  another  corner  a  ma- 


30  HERITAGE 

chine  which   I   learnt  was  called  the   sepa- 
rator. 

1  'Father's  very  proud  of  this,'  said  my 
companion,  'none  of  the  other  farms  round 
here  have  got  one.' 

"I  sat  on  the  central  table  watching  her 
as  she  moved  about  her  business;  she  didn't 
take  very  much  notice  of  me,  and  I  was  at 
liberty  to  observe  her,  noting  her  practised 
efficiency  in  handling  the  pans  and  cans  of 
milk;  noting,  too,  her  dark,  un-English 
beauty,  un-English  not  so  much,  as  you 
might  think,  owing  to  the  swarthiness  of  her 
complexion,  as  to  something  subtly  tender 
in  the  curve  of  her  features  and  the  swell 
of  her  forearm.  She  hummed  to  herself  as 
she  worked.  I  asked  her  whether  the  evening 
did  not  find  her  weary. 

"  'One's  glad  to  get  to  bed,'  she  said  in 
a  matter-of-fact  tone,  adding,  'but  it's  all 
right  unless  one's  queer.'* 

'  'Can't  you  take  a  day  off,  being  on  your 
father's  farm?' 

"  'Beasts  have  to  be  fed,  queer  or  no 
queer,'  she  replied. 

'The  milk  was  now  ready  in  shining  cans, 
and  going  to  the  door  she  shouted, — 


HERITAGE  31 

"'Sid!' 

"A  voice  calling  in  answer  was  followed 
by  one  of  the  sons.  Neither  brother  nor 
sister  spoke,  while  the  young  man  trundled 
away  the  cans  successively;  I  heard  them 
bumping  on  the  cobbles,  and  bumping  more 
loudly  as,  presumably,  he  lifted  them  into  a 
cart.  Ruth  had  turned  to  wiping  up  the 
dairy. 

"  'Where  is  he  going  with  the  cans?'  I 
asked. 

"  'Milk-round,'  she  answered  laconically. 

"That  was  the  first  time  I  saw  her,"  he 
added.  "The  second  time  was  in  full  mid- 
day, and  she  was  gleaning  in  a  stubble-field; 
yes;  her  name  was  Ruth,  and  she  was  glean- 
ing. She  moved  by  stages  across  the  field, 
throwing  out  her  long  wooden  rake  to  its 
farthest  extent  and  drawing  it  back  to  her 
until  she  had  gathered  sufficient  strands 
into  a  heap,  when,  laying  down  the  rake, 
she  bound  the  corn  against  her  thigh,  rapidly 
and  skilfully  into  a  sheaf.  The  occupation 
seemed  wholly  suitable.  Although  her  head 
was  not  covered  by  a  coloured  handkerchief, 
but  hidden  by  a  linen  sunbonnet,  she  re- 


32  HERITAGE 

minded  me  of  the  peasant  women  labouring 
in  the  fields  of  other  lands  than  ours.  I  do 
not  know  whether,  in  the  light  of  my  pres- 
ent wisdom,  I  exaggerate  the  impression  of 
those  early  days.  I  think  that  perhaps  at 
first,  imbued  as  I  was  with  the  idea  of  the 
completely  English  character  of  my  sur- 
roundings, I  remained  insensible  to  the  flaw 
which  presently  became  so  self-evident  in  the 
harmony  of  my  preconceived  picture. 

"Tiny  things  occurred,  which  I  noted  at 
the  time  and  cast  aside  on  the  scrap-heap 
of  my  observation,  and  which  later  I  re- 
trieved and  strung  together  in  their  coherent 
order.  As  who  should  come  upon  the  pieces 
of  a  child's  puzzle  strewn  here  and  there 
upon  his  path. 

"Ruth,  my  instructress  and  companion,  I 
saw  going  about  her  work  without  haste, 
almost  without  interest.  She  was  kind  to 
the  animals  in  her  care  after  an  indifferent, 
sleepy  fashion,  more  from  habit  and  upbring- 
ing than  from  a  natural  benevolence.  She 
brought  no  enthusiasm  to  any  of  her  under- 
takings. Her  tasks  were  performed  con- 
scientiously, but  by  rote.  Yet  one  day,  when 
the  sheep-dog  happened  to  be  in  her  path,  I 


HERITAGE  33 

saw  her  kick  out  at  it  in  the  belly  with  sud- 
den and  unbridled  vehemence. 

"I  was  first  really  startled  by  the  appear- 
ance of  Rawdon  Westmacott.  In  the  big, 
shadowy,  draughty  barn  I  was  cutting  chaff 
for  the  horses,  while  Ruth  sat  near  by  on  a 
truss  of  straw,  trying  to  mend  a  bridle-strap 
with  string.  I  had  then  been  at  Pennistans' 
about  a  week.  The  wide  doors  of  the  barn 
were  open,  letting  in  a  great  square  of  dust- 
moted  sunlight,  and  in  this  square  a  score 
of  Leghorn  hens  and  cockerels  moved  pick- 
ing at  the  scattered  chaff,  daintily  prinking 
on  their  spindly  feet,  snowy  white  and  coral 
crested.  A  shadow  fell  across  the  floor. 
Ruth  and  I  raised  our  heads.  A  young  man 
leant  against  the  side  of  the  door,  a  tall 
young  man  in  riding  breeches,  with  a  dull 
red  stock  twisted  round  his  throat,  smacking 
at  his  leathern  gaiters  with  a  riding  whip  he 
held  in  his  hand.  The  rein  was  over  his 
arm,  and  his  horse,  lowering  his  head, 
snuffed  breezily  at  the  chaff  blown  out  into 
the  yard. 

"  'You're  back,  then?'  said  Ruth. 

"  'Ay,'  said  the  young  man,  looking  sus- 
piciously at  me,  and  I  caught  the  slightest 


34  HERITAGE 

jerk  of  the  head  and  interrogative  crinkle 
of  the  forehead  by  which  he  required  an 
explanation. 

"  'This  is  my  cousin,  Rawdon  Westmacott, 
Mr.  Malory,'  Ruth  said. 

"The  young  man  flicked  his  whip  up  to 
his  cap,  and  then  dismissed  me  from  his 
interest. 

"  'Coming  out,  Ruth?'  he  asked. 

"She  pouted  her  indecision. 
'You  shall  have  a  ride/  he  suggested. 

"  £No,  thanks.' 

"  'Well,  walk  a  bit  of  the  way  home  with 
me,  anyhow.' 

"  'I  don't  know  that  I'm  so  very  keen.' 

"  'Oh,  come  on,  Ruthie,  after  I've  ridden 
straight  over  here  to  see  you;  thrown  my  bag 
into  the  house,  and  come  straight  away  to  you, 
without  a  look  into  one  single  thing  at  home.' 

"  'It'd  be  better  for  things  if  you  did  look 
into  them  a  bit  more,  Rawdon.' 

"Overcome  by  the  perversity  of  women,  he 
said  again, — 

"  'Come  on,  Ruthie/ 

"She  rose  slowly,  and,  untying  the  apron 
of  sacking  which  she  wore  over  her  skirt,  she 
stepped  out  into  the  sunshine.  For  a  flash 


HERITAGE  35 

I  saw  them  standing  there  together,  and  I 
saw  Rawdon  Westmacott  as  he  ever  after 
appeared  to  me:  a  Bedouin  in  corduroy,  with 
a  thin,  fierce  face,  the  grace  of  an  antelope, 
and  the  wildness  of  a  hawk;  a  creature  cap- 
tured either  in  the  desert  or  from  the  woods. 
Strange  product  for  the  English  country- 
side! Then  they  were  gone,  and  the  horse, 
turning,  followed  the  tug  on  the  rein. 

"I  date  from  that  moment  my  awakening 
to  a  state  of  affairs  less  simple  than  I  had 
imagined.  I  saw  Ruth  again  with  Westma- 
cott, and  learnt  with  a  little  shock  that  here 
was  not  merely  an  idle,  rural,  or  cousinly 
flirtation.  The  man's  blood  was  crazy  for  her. 

"And  so  I  became  aware  of  the  existence 
of  some  element  I  could  not  reconcile  with 
my  surroundings,  some  unseen  presence 
which  would  jerk  me  away  abruptly  to  the 
sensation  that  I  was  in  the  midst  of  a  for- 
eign encampment;  was  it  Biblical?  was  it 
Arab?  troubled  was  I  and  puzzled;  I  tried 
to  dismiss  the  fancy,  but  it  returned;  I  even 
appealed  to  various  of  the  Pennistans  for 
enlightenment,  but  they  stared  at  me  blankly. 

"Yes,  I  tried  to  dismiss  it,  and  to  brush 


36  HERITAGE 

aside  the  haze  of  mystery  as  one  brushes 
aside  the  smoke  of  a  cigarette.  And  I  could 
not  succeed.  How  trivial,  how  easily  ignored 
are  facts,  when  one's  quarrel  is  with  the 
enigma  of  force  at  the  heart  of  things!  It 
isn't  often  in  this  civilised  life  of  ours  that 
one  comes  into  contact  with  it;  one's  busi- 
ness lies  mostly  with  men  and  women  whose 
whole  system  of  philosophy  is  inimical  to 
natural,  inconvenient  impulse.  It  obeys  us 
as  a  rule,  like  a  tame  lion  doing  its  tricks 
for  the  lion-tamer.  A  terrifying  thought 
truly,  that  we  are  shut  up  for  life  in  a  cage 
with  a  wild  beast  that  may  at  any  moment 
throw  off  its  docility  to  leap  upon  us!  We 
taunt  it,  we  provoke  it,  we  tweak  its  tail, 
we  take  every  advantage  of  its  forbearance; 
then  when  the  day  comes  for  it  to  turn  on 
us,  we  cry  out,  and  try  to  get  away  into  a 
corner.  At  least  let  us  do  it  the  honour  to 
recognise  its  roar  of  warning,  as  I  did  then, 
though  I  was  as  surprised  and  disquieted  as 
I  dare  say  you  would  have  been,  at  meeting 
a  living  lion  in  the  woods  of  Kent. 

"I  could  compare  it  to  many  other  things, 
but  principally  I  think  I  felt  it  as  a  ghost 
that  peeped  out  at  me  from  over  innocent 


HERITAGE  37 

shoulders.  Am  I  mixing  my  metaphors? 
You  see,  it  was  so  vague,  so  elusive,  that  it 
seemed  to  combine  all  the  bogeys  of  one's 
childhood.  Something  we  don't  understand; 
that  is  what  frightens  us,  from  the  child 
alone  in  the  dark  to  the  old  man  picking  at 
the  sheets  on  his  deathbed.  Perhaps  you 
think  I  am  exaggerating.  Certainly  my 
apprehension  was  a  very  indefinite  one,  at 
most  it  was  a  dim  vision  of  possibilities 
unnamed,  it  wasn't  even  a  sense  of  the  im- 
minence of  crisis,  much  less  the  imminence 
of  tragedy.  And  yet  ...  I  don't  know. 
I  still  believe  that  tragedy  was  there  some- 
where, perhaps  only  on  the  horizon,  and 
that  the  merest  chance  alone  served  to  avert 
it.  Perhaps  it  wasn't  entirely  averted.  One 
never  knows;  one  only  sees  with  ofle's  clumsy 
eyes.  One  sees  the  dead  body,  but  never 
the  dead  soul.  The  whole  story  is,  to  me, 
unsatisfactory;  I  often  wonder  whether  there 
is  a  conclusion  somewhere,  that  either  I  have 
missed,  or  that  hasn't  yet  been  published  by 
the  greatest  of  story-tellers. 

"Anyway,  all  this  is  too  fanciful,  and  I 
have  inadvertently  wandered  into  an  inner 
circle  of  speculation,  I  mean  soul-speculation, 


38  HERITAGE 

when  I  really  meant  to  be  concerned  with 
the  outer  circle  only. 

"I  could  lay  my  hand  on  nothing  more 
definite  than  the  appearance,  certainly  un- 
usual, of  Ruth  or  of  Westmacott;  other  trifles 
were  so  absurd  that  I  scorned  to  dwell  on 
them  in  my  mind,  the  red  braces  of  Amos 
and  that .  faint  scent  of  roasting  chestnuts 
in  the  kitchen  under  the  hands  of  Amos's 
grandmother.  Whenever  I  went  into  the 
kitchen  I  met  that  scent,  and  heard  the 
indefinite  mumble  of  the  old  woman's  tooth- 
less mouth,  and  the  smell  of  the  chestnuts 
floated  out,  too,  into  the  narrow  entrance- 
passage  and  up  the  steep  stairs  which  led 
to  the  rooms  above.  I  associate  it  always 
now  with  a  narrow  passage,  rather  dark; 
sloping  ceilings;  and  rooms  where  the  pic- 
tures could  be  hung  on  the  south  wall  only, 
because  of  the  crookedness  of  the  house.  In 
the  parlour,  which  balanced  the  kitchen,  but 
was  never  used,  was  an  old-fashioned  oil- 
painting  of  a  soldier  with  whiskers  and  a 
tightly-buttoned  uniform,  and  this  painting 
swung  out  from  the  north  wall  with  a  space 
of  perhaps  six  inches  between  the  wall  and 
the  bottom  of  the  frame." 


II 


ON  the  morrow  we  again  took  our  pipes  to 
the  clump  of  pines,  and  Malory  began,  in 
his  drowsy,  meditative  voice,  to  tell  his  story 
from  where  he  had  left  off. 

"I  hope  you  are  by  now  as  curious  as  I 
was  to  discover  the  secret  of  the  Pennistan 
quality.  The  family  were  evidently  uncon- 
scious that  there  was  any  secret  to  discover. 
They  thought  no  more  of  themselves  than 
they  did  of  their  blue  surrounding  hills, 
though  in  relation  to  the  weather  they  con- 
sidered their  blue  hills  a  good  deal,  and 
Amos  taught  me  one  evening  that  too  great 
a  clearness  was  not  to  be  desired ;  the  row 
of  poplars  over  towards  Penshurst  should  be 
slightly  obscured,  misty;  and  if  it  was  so,  and 
if  the  haze  hung  over  Crowborough  Beacon, 
I  might  safely  leave  the  yearling  calves  out 
in  the  field  all  night.  I  should  look  also  for 
a  heavy  dew  upon  the  ground,  which  would 
predict  a  fine  day  besides  bringing  out  the 
mushrooms. 

89 


40  HERITAGE 

"We  were  standing  in  the  cross-roads, 
where  the  white  finger-post  said,  'Eden- 
bridge,  Leigh,  Cowden,'  and  Amos  had  cor- 
rected my  pronunciation  from  Lee  to  Lye, 
and  from  Cowden  to  Cowden.  I  know  no 
greater  joy  than  returning  to  the  heart  of 
a  beloved  country  by  road,  and  seeing  the 
names  on  the  finger-posts  change  from  the 
unfamiliar  to  the  familiar,  passing  through 
stages  of  acquaintance  to  friendship,  and 
from  friendship  into  intimacy.  Half  the 
secret  of  love  lies  in  intimacy,  whereby  love 
gains  in  tenderness  what  it  loses  in  mystery, 
and  is  not  the  poorer  by  the  bargain. 

"Mrs.  Pennistan  came  out  to  join  us,  and 
I  took  the  opportunity  of  asking  her  whether 
I  might  use  a  certain  cupboard  for  my 
clothes,  as  I  was  pressed  for  room.  She 
replied, — 

"  'Granny  had  that  cupboard,  but  she's 
surely  past  using  it  now,  so  anything  of 
hers  you  find  in  it,  hang  out  over  the  ban- 
nister, and  I'll  pack  it  away  in  a  box.' 

"Out  of  this  little  material  circumstance 
I  obtained  my  explanation;  I  went  in,  leav- 
ing husband  and  wife  strolling  in  the  road, 
for  it  was  Sunday  evening,  and  on  their 


HERITAGE  41 

Sunday  evening  they  clung  to  their  hour  of 
leisure.  I  went  in,  past  the  chestnuts,  up 
the  stairs,  and  at  the  top  of  the  stairs  I 
opened  the  cupboard  door,  and  explored 
with  my  hand  to  discover  whether  the  recess 
was  empty.  It  was  not,  so  I  fetched  my 
candle  in  its  blue  tin  candlestick,  and  lifted 
out  the  garments  one  by  one;  they  were 
three  in  number. 

"I  carried  them  carefully  into  my  room, 
with  no  intention  of  examining  them,  but  as 
I  laid  them  on  the  bed  their  texture  and 
fashion  arrested  me.  A  smell  came  from 
them,  faded  and  far  away.  I  held  them  up 
one  by  one:  a  heavily  fringed  shawl  of 
Spanish  make,  a  black  skirt  with  many 
flounces,  a  tiny  satin  bodice  that  would 
barely,  I  thought,  fit  a  child.  As  I  unrolled 
this  last,  something  fell  from  it:  a  pair  of 
old,  pink  shoes,  tiny  shoes,  heelless  shoes, — 
the  shoes  of  a  ballet  dancer. 

"As  I  turned  over  these  relics  I  heard 
some  one  moving  in  the  passage  below,  and 
going  to  the  top  of  the  stairs  I  called  to 
Ruth.  She  came  up,  then  seeing  the  shoes 
in  my  hands  she  gave  an  exclamation  of 
surprise. 


42  HERITAGE 

"'Are  these  yours?'  I  asked. 
'  'Mine !  no ;  why,  look  here/  and  she 
held  a  shoe  against  her  foot,  which,  although 
small,  outstripped  the  shoe  in  width  and 
length.  'They're  granny's,  I  reckon,'  she 
added. 

"Then  she  took  up  the  bodice  and  exam- 
ined it  critically. 

'  'It's  a  bit  rotten,  of  course,'  she  re- 
marked, pulling  cautiously  at  the  stuff,  'but 
where'd  you  buy  satin  now  to  last  as  well 
as  that?  and  bought  abroad,  too.' 

"The  subtlest  inflection  of  resentment  was 
in  her  tone. 

'  'Here,  give  them  to  me,'  she  said. 
'Granny  can't  want  these  old  rags,  messing 
up  the  house.  There's  little  enough  cup- 
board room  anyhow.  I'll  put  the  shawl 
away  up  in  the  attic,  for  there's  wear  in  it 
yet,  but  the  rest  can  go  on  the  midden.' 

"I  detained  her. 

"  'Tell  me  first,  how  comes  your  grand- 
mother to  have  these  things?' 

"She  was  surprised  at  my  ignorance. 

"  'To  start  with,  she's  father's  grand- 
mother, not  mine.  She's  so  old,  I  forget  her 
mostly.  .  .  .  She's  ninety-six,  ninety-seven 


HERITAGE  43 

come  Christmas.  We're  wondering  if  she'll 
last  to  a  hundred.' 

"How  callous  she  was!  Triply  callous,  I 
thought,  because  of  her  own  youth,  because 
of  her  great-grandmother's  extreme  age,  and 
because  of  the  natural  philosophic  indiffer- 
ence of  her  class  towards  life  and  death. 

"  'She  was  a  dancer,  once,  you  know,'  she 
went  on.  'Used  to  dance  on  the  stage,  and 
my  great-grandfather  found  her  there,  and 
married  her.  What  a  tiny  little  thing  she 
must  have  been,  just  look  at  this,'  and  she 
held  the  little  bodice  across  her  own  breast 
with  a  gay  laugh,  like  a  child  trying  to  put 
on  the  clothes  of  its  biggest  doll. 

"Then  she  held  the  skirt  against  her 
slender  hips  to  show  me  how  short  it  was, 
and  pointed  her  foot  in  an  instinctive  dance 
position. 

•  "She  was  holding  up  the  bodice  by  tuck- 
ing it  under  her  chin.  I  looked  at  her,  and 
she  blushed,  and  convinced  me  that  no 
woman  ever  stands  altogether  innocent  of 
coquetry  before  any  man. 

'Tell     me     more     about     your     grand- 
mother,' I  said. 

"  'It's    so    long   ago,'    she    replied.      '  She 


44  HERITAGE 

had  two  children,  and  one  was  my  father's 
father,  and  the  other  was  Rawdon  West- 
macott's  mother.  You  know  my  cousin 
Rawdon?' 

"  'I  know  him,'  I  said.  'So  you  and  he 
are  of  different  generations,  though  there's 
not  more  than  twelve  years  between  you  in 
age.' 

' "  Yes,  that's  so.  Now  I  come  to  think 
of  it,  there's  the  old  book  in  the  parlour 
you  might  like  to  read,  a  diary  or  something, 
ikept  by  my  great-grandfather.  It's  only  an 
old  thing;  I've  never  looked  on  it  myself, 
but  I've  heard  father  talk  of  it.  Shall  I  get 
it  for  you?' 

"I  begged  that  she  would  do  so,  and  she 
ran  downstairs,  and  returned  with  a  little 
tartan-covered  volume  in  her  hand. 

"  'Father  sets  great  store  by  it,'  she  said 
hesitatingly,  as  she  gave  it  up  to  me. 

"  'He  won't  object  to  my  reading  it?' 

"  'Oh,  no,  if  you've  a  mind.' 

"She  evidently  looked  down  on  me  a  good 
deal  for  my  interest  in  the  old-fashioned 
volume. 

"Left  alone,  I  drew  my  chair  near  to  the 
chest  of  drawers,  whereon  I  had  set  the  blue 


HERITAGE  45 

candlestick;  I  had  two  hours  before  me,  and 
I  felt  as  an  explorer  might  feel  on  the  verge 
of  a  new  country.  Here  was  a  document 
written  by  a  dead  hand,  an  intimate  docu- 
ment, private  property,  not  edited  and  re- 
edited,  but  quietly  owned  by  dignified  and 
unassuming  descendants,  who  would  neither 
cheapen  nor  profane  by  giving  the  dead 
man's  confidence  to  the  world.  It  was 
probable  that  no  intelligently  interested  eyes 
but  mine  would  ever  read  it.  I  hesitated 
for  an  appreciable  time  before  I  opened  the 
diary,  and  in  that  pause  my  eyes  wandered 
from  the  little  book  to  the  little  garments 
on  the  bed,  and  I  fancied  that  these  inani- 
mate objects,  made  animate  by  the  spirit  of 
their  respective  owners,  called  to  one  another 
yearningly  across  the  silence  of  my  room. 

"When  I  at  last  opened  the  diary  I  found 
myself  carried  straight  away  into  an  unan- 
ticipated world.  The  man,  whose  name  and 
rank,  'Oliver  Pennistan,  captain,  Dragoons,' 
I  read  on  the  fly-leaf,  was  writing  in  Spain. 
His  first  entry  was  dated  Madrid,  1830.  He 
wrote  without  conscious  art,  and  indeed  his 
daily  jottings  seemed  to  me  solely  the  occu- 
pation of  a  lonely  evening;  at  one  moment 


46  HERITAGE 

he  was  annoyed  because  he  had  been  given 
pan  de  munition,  which  was  hard,  black,  and 
uneatable,  instead  of  pan  de  candeal;  at 
another,  he  had  been  overcharged  by  his 
landlord,  and  feared  he  must  exchange  into 
a  different  posada. 

"He  was  innocent  of  literary  artifice,  this 
Pepys  of  nineteenth  century  Spain,  yet  the 
natural,  matter  of  fact,  unstudied  candour 
of  his  daily  biography  brought  the  prepos- 
terous age  before  me,  crimped  and  gro- 
tesque, the  Spain  of  Goya.  Eighteen-thirty, 
an  incredible  period  in  any  country,  attained 
in  Spain  an  incredibility  which  turned  it 
into  a  caricature  of  itself.  Oliver  Pen- 
nistan,  I  knew,  wore  whiskers  and  an  eye- 
glass; tight,  straight,  high  military  trousers; 
drawled;  guffawed;  said  'Egad.'  As  for 
the  women  of  his  acquaintance,  I  knew  them 
to  be  frizzed  and  fuzzed,  with  faces  mauve 
beneath  their  powder,  and  hearts  sick  with 
sentiment  beneath  their  tight  bodices.  I  did 
not  know  what  had  taken  Oliver  Pennistan 
to  Spain,  but  I  supposed  that  he  was  a 
younger  son,  as  I  had  heard  Amos  boast  of 
the  dozen  boys  of  his  grandfather's  genera- 
tion. 


HERITAGE  47 

"Still  I  did  not  connect  his  Spanish  expe- 
riences with  the  Pennistans  I  knew.  I  read 
the  Madrid  portion  of  his  diary  without 
impatience,  because  I  was  greatly  enter- 
tained by  the  subtle  flavour  of  the  age  which 
I  found  therein,  but  when  he  came  to  pack- 
ing his  valise  preparatory  for  a  trip  to 
Cadiz,  I  fluttered  the  pages  over,  looking 
for  his  return  to  England.  I  wanted  to  get 
to  the  dancer  who  now  sat  in  the  room  below 
mine  roasting  chestnuts  over  the  fire.  I  was 
disappointed  to  see  that  the  diary  never 
accompanied  him  to  England,  and  I  began 
to  fear  that  his  courtship  and  marriage 
would  not  be  revealed  to  me. 

"  'Leaving  Madrid  with  regret,'  ran  the 
diary,  'but  have  the  benefit  of  agreeable 
society  on  the  road.  Hope  to  cover  thirty 
miles  to  the  day.  I  have  a  broad  sash  to 
keep  off  the  colic,  and  an  amulet  from  a  fair 
friend  to  keep  off  the  evil  eye! 

"Thus  equipped,  the  dragoon  rode  to 
Cadiz,  and  I  must  do  him  the  justice  to 
say  that  he  looked  on  the  country  he  rode 
through  with  an  appreciative  eye,  noting  the 
scent  of  the  orange-blossom  which  assailed 
him  as  he  entered  Andalusia,  and  the 


48  HERITAGE 

grandeur  of  the  rocky  passes  which  connect 
northern  and  southern  Spain.  At  the  same 
time,  he  kept  that  nice  sense  of  proportion 
by  which  tolerable  food  and  lodging  remains 
more  important  to  the  traveller  than  beauty 
of  scenery.  He  noted  also  the  superior  at- 
tractions of  the  Andalusian  women,  'little, 
and  dark,  and  for  the  most  part  fat,  but 
with  twinkling  eyes  and  a  smile  more 
friendly,  if  also  more  covert,  than  their 
sisters  of  Madrid.' 

"I  turned  over  the  pages  again  at  this 
point,  and  chanced  at  last  upon  a  phrase 
which  convinced  me  that  he  had  met  his  love. 
Then  the  book  fell  from  my  hand,  and  I 
lost  myself  in  a  reverie,  working  my  way 
laboriously  through  a  maze  of  preconception 
to  the  fact  that  this  dancer  of  whom  I  had 
heard  from  Ruth  was  not  an  English  dancer, 
but  a  Spanish  dancer,  and  as  this  fact  broke 
like  daylight  upon  me  I  realised  that  I  had 
bored  into  the  heart  of  my  mystery.  Mo- 
ments of  revelation  are  intrinsically  dramatic 
things,  when  a  new  knowledge,  irrevocable, 
undisputable,  comes  to  dwell  in  the  mind. 
All  previous  habitants  have  to  readjust 
themselves  to  make  room  for  the  stranger. 


HERITAGE  49 

A  great  shuffling  and  stampeding  took  place 
now  in  my  brain,  but  I  found  that,  far  from 
experiencing  discomfort  or  difficulty  in  ac- 
commodating themselves  to  their  new  condi- 
tions, my  prejudices  jumped  briskly  round 
and  presented  themselves  in  their  true  shape 
beneath  the  searching  glare  of  the  revelation. 
"I  read  on  eagerly,  the  shadow  of  disap- 
pointment lifting  from  me.  Oliver  Pen- 
nistan  lodged  at  an  inn  which  provided  him 
with  excellent  Valdepenas;  his  business  in 
Cadiz  was  somehow  connected  with  wine,  and 
many  technical  jottings  followed,  put  in  as 
a  guide  to  his  memory;  I  did  not  understand 
all  his  abbreviations,  but  was  nevertheless 
impressed  by  his  knowledge  of  sherry.  His 
business  took  him  most  of  the  day.  In  the 
evenings  he  was  a  free  man,  and  spent  his 
time  in  the  theatre;  probably  it  was  here 
that  he  first  saw  his  dancer,  for  at  about  this 
time  her  name  began  to  appear  in  the  diary: 
'To  the  fight  with  Concha,'  or  'With 
Concha  to  the  merry-go-round/  There  were 
also  references  to  the  'Egyptians,'  who 
were  Concha's  people,  and  the  Goya  world 
of  Madrid  was  replaced  by  a  society  of 
Bohemians — bull  fighters,  mountebanks,  aero- 


50  HERITAGE 

bats,  hunchbacks,  thieves,  fortune  tellers,  all 
the  riff-raff  of  the  gipsy  quarter. 

"I  took  this  as  a  miniature  allegory,  for 
in  the  Prado  at  Madrid  the  Goya  portraits 
of  ladies  and  the  Royal  family  hang  upstairs, 
while  in  a  basement,  typical  of  the  under- 
world into  which  Oliver  Pennistan  had  now 
plunged,  hang  his  series  of  extraordinary 
cartoons,  caricatures,  nightmares,  peopled 
with  obscene  dwarfs  and  monstrous  parasites. 

"How  remote  the  England  of  his  boyhood 
must  have  seemed  to  him,  his  eleven  brothers, 
the  hills,  the  hawthorn,  the  farm-buildings; 
if  he  saw  them  at  all,  it  must  have  been  as 
at  the  end  of  a  long  avenue.  I  looked  up, 
out  of  my  window  across  the  sleeping  fields, 
and  returned  again  to  the  pages  yet  hot  and 
quivering  with  life,  written  in  an  ill-lighted 
posada  at  Cadiz. 

"In  the  same  way  that,  without  a  descrip- 
tive word,  he  had  contrived  to  give  me  an 
unmistakable  impression  of  the  Spain  of  his 
day,  he  now  gave  me  a  portrait  of  the 
dancer,  passionate  but  strangely  chaste, 
scornful  of  men,  but  yielding  her  heart  to 
him  while  she  withheld  her  body.  He  gave 
me  a  picture  also  of  his  own  love,  flaming 


HERITAGE  51 

suddenly  out  of  a  night  of  indifference,  over- 
whelming him  and  sweeping  aside  his  reason, 
determining  him  to  make  a  wife  of  the  gipsy 
he  would  more  naturally  have  desired  as  a 
passing  love.  I  was  intimate  with  his  inten- 
tion, yet  he  never  departed  from  his  cata- 
logue of  facts  and  doings;  stay,  once  he 
departed  from  it  to  say,  'Her  head  sleek 
as  a  berry,  her  little  teeth  white  as  nuts.' 
His  one  description.  ...  I  looked  across 
at  the  little  silent  heap  of  garments  on  my 
bed,  that  had  clasped  the  fragile  being  he 
revered  with  so  much  tenderness. 

"  'To  the  bull-ring  with  Concha,'  he  noted 
on  one  occasion.  'Not  to  the  spectacle,  but 
to  the  driving  in  from  the  corral.  Miura 
bulls,  black  and  small,  but  agile  more  than 
most.  They  are  driven  in  through  the 
streets  in  the  small  hours  of  morning,  to- 
gether with  the  tame  cattle,  by  men  on 
horses.  These  men  wear  the  bolero  and  high, 
peaked  hat,  and  carry  a  long  pole  armed 
with  an  iron  point.  I  would  have  ridden, 
but  she  dissuaded  me.  We  waited  on  a 
balcony  above  a  yard.  A  long  wait,  but 
tot  dreary  in  such  company.  There  is  much 
shouting  when  the  bulls  come,  and  the  yard 


52  HERITAGE 

beneath  is  filled  with  fury  and  bellowing; 
I  would  not  willingly  chance  my  skin  among 
such  angry  monsters,  but  their  drivers  with 
skill  manoeuvre  each  bull  by  himself  into 
a  separate  cell  where  he  is  to  remain  without 
food  or  drink  until  morning.  A  diverting 
spectacle,  had  it  not  been  for  the  press  and 
the  stench  of  ordures.' 

"I  have  seen  that  dim  yard  myself,"  said 
Malory,  "  chaotic  with  lashings  and  tram- 
plings,  and  pawings  and  snortings,  and  the 
vast  animals  butt  against  the  woodwork, 
and  their  huge  forms  move  confusedly  in  the 
limited  space.  Like  Pennistan,  I  would  not 
care  to  chance  my  skin.  Concha,  who  being 
a  Spaniard  was  bred  up  to  violence,  was 
even  a  little  frightened,  'clung  to  me,'  said 
the  diary,  'and  besought  me  not  to  leave 
her.  We  saw  the  bulls  in  their  cells  from 
above,  by  the  light  of  torches.  These  brands 
may  be  thrust  down  to  burn  and  singe  and 
further  enrage  the  beast,'  but  Oliver  Pen- 
nistan, who  had  been  nurtured  on  this  mild 
farm  among  pampered  and  kindly  kine,  did 
not  like  the  sport,  so  turned  away  with 
Concha  on  his  arm  and  passed  through  a 
door  into  the  upper  gallery  of  the  arena. 


HERITAGE  53 

"The  vast  circle  seemed  yet  vaster  by 
reason  of  its  emptiness.  Its  ten  thousand 
seats  curved  round  in  tiers  and  tiers  and 
tiers,  a  gigantic  funnel,  open  to  the  sky  in 
which  sailed  a  full  and  placid  moon.  The 
arena,  ready  raked  and  scattered  with  whitish 
sand,  gleamed  palely  below,  as  if  it  had  been 
the  reflection  of  the  heavenly  moon  in  a 
pool  of  water.  The  great  place  lay  in 
haunted  silence. 

"It  was  here,  sitting  in  a  box,  that  they 
came  to  their  final  agreement.  The  diary 
naturally  giving  me  no  hint  of  the  words 
that  passed  between  them,  I  had  to  be  con- 
tent with  a  laconic  entry  some  few  days 
later:  'Married  this  morning  at  the  church 
of  S.  Pedro.'  I  sat  on  in  my  room  won- 
dering what  Oliver  Pennistan  had  made  of 
that  surrendered,  inviolate  soul,  the  no  doubt 
rather  stupid  and  affected  soldier,  the  scion 
of  English  yeomen;  I  wonder  what  he  made 
of  his  wildling,  sprung  as  she  was  from  God 
knows  what  parentage;  the  Moorish  Empire 
and  the  Holy  Land  had  both  surely  gone  to 
her  making.  They  roamed  Spain  together 
for  their  honeymoon,  and  I  accompanied 
them  in  spirit,  seeing  her  dance,  not  in  pub- 


54  HERITAGE 

lie  places  only,  but  in  their  room,  for  his 
eyes  alone,  his  hungry  love  her  sweetest 
applause;  dancing  in  her  little  shift,  and 
teaching  his  clumsy  hands  to  clap  and  his 
lips  to  cry  'OleT  I  wonder  too  what  the 
mountebanks  of  the  trade  thought  of  Con- 
cha's husband,  who  sat  through  her  per- 
formance in  the  hot,  boarded  theatres  of 
Spanish  provincial  towns,  and  would  allow 
no  other  man  near  his  wife,  and  who,  when 
one  evening  she  for  pure  mischief  eluded 
him,  only  grieved  in  silence  and  thought  her 
love  was  going  from  him.  I  wonder  most  of 
all  what  Concha  thought  of  him,  his  staid 
insularity,  his  perpetual  talk  of  home,  and 
his  unassailable  prejudices? 

"As  I  came  to  the  last  pages  of  the  diary, 
which  ended  abruptly  on  the  last  day  of  the 
year  in  Valladolid,  Ruth  knocked  on  my 
door  and  said  she  had  come  for  the  clothes. 
I  was  so  full  of  the  illuminating  romance 
that  I  pressed  her  with  questions.  She  was 
not  so  much  reserved  as  merely  indifferent, 
but  looking  at  her  warm  young  face  in  the 
uncertain  candlelight  I  knew  that  therein, 
rather  than  in  her  speech,  lay  the  answer 
to  all  my  queries.  I  had  seen  the  portraits 


HERITAGE  55 

of  Amos  Pennistan's  father,  and  of  Rawdon 
Westmaeott's  mother,  daguerreotypes  which 
hung,  enlarged,  on  either  side  of  the  kitchen 
dresser,  and  I  knew  that  in  that  generation 
no  sign  of  the  Spanish  strain  had  appeared. 
I  looked  again  at  Ruth,  at  her  sleek  brown 
head,  her  glowing  skin,  her  disdainful  poise; 
looked,  and  was  enlightened.  I  urged  her 
memory.  Could  she  recall  no  anecdote,  dear 
to  her  father  when  in  a  mood  of  comfortable 
expansion,  a  family  legend  of  her  grand- 
father's youth?  Yes,  she  remembered  hear- 
ing that  the  children  had  an  uneasy  time  of 
it,  blows  and  kisses  distributed  alternately 
between  them,  now  hugged  to  their  mother's 
breast,  now  sent  reeling  across  the  room. 
.  .  .  She  had  been  gay,  it  seemed,  that 
ancient  woman,  deliciously  gay,  light-hearted, 
generous,  full  of  song,  but  of  sudden  and 
uncertain  temper.  But  she  remembered, 
though  it  was  not  worth  the  telling,  that 
Mrs.  Oliver  Pennistan,  in  her  sunniest  mood, 
would  set  her  children  on  hassocks  to  watch 
her,  their  backs  against  the  wall,  would  take 
down  her  hair,  which  was  long  and  a  source 
of  pride  to  her  as  to  all  Spanish  women, 
would  take  her  shawl  from  the  cupboard, 


56  HERITAGE 

and,  stripping  off  her  shoes  and  stockings, 
would  dance  for  her  children,  up  and  down, 
the  sinuous  intricacies  of  an  Andalusian 
dance.  I  wondered  what  Oliver  Pennistan 
thought,  when,  coming  in  of  an  evening  with 
the  mud  from  the  turnip  fields  heavy  on  his 
boots,  he  found  his  wife  with  hair  and  fingers 
flying,  dancing  to  the  music  of  her  own  voice 
on  the  tiled  floor  of  his  ancestral  kitchen?" 


Ill 


"Now,"  said  Malory,  "I  scarcely  know  how 
to  continue  my  story.  I  have  told  you  how 
I  went  to  live  with  the  Pennistans,  and  I 
have  told  you  Oliver  Pennistan's  Spanish 
adventure,  and  the  rest  lies  largely  in  hours 
so  full  of  work  that  no  day  could  drag,  but 
which  in  words  would  take  five  minutes' 
reproducing.  I  have  told  you  already  how 
I  loved  that  simple  monotone  of  life.  I  had 
arrived  in  autumn,  an  unwise  choice  for  a 
novice  less  enthusiastic  than  myself,  for  soon 
the  trees  were  bare  of  the  fruit  which  had 
so  rejoiced  me,  bare,  too,  of  the  summer  leaf, 
and  the  working  day,  which  at  first  had 
drawn  itself  out  in  long,  warm,  melting 
evening,  now  rushed  into  darkness  before 
work  was  done,  and  not  into  darkness  alone, 
but  into  chill  and  wet,  so  that  you  might 
often  have  seen  me  going  about  my  work 
in  the  cow-sheds  with  a  sack  over  my  shoul- 
ders and  a  hurricane  lantern  in  my  hand. 
I  do  not  pretend  that  I  enjoyed  these  squally 

57 


58  HERITAGE 

winter  nights.  They  had  the  effect  of  dull- 
ing my  perception,  and  presently  I  found 
myself  like  the  country  people  whose  life 
I  shared,  considering  the  weather  merely  in 
its  relation  to  myself;  was  it  wet?  then  I 
should  be  wet;  was  it  a  bright,  fine  day?  then 
I  should  be  dry.  My  standpoint  veered 
slowly  round,  like  the  needle  of  a  compass, 
from  the  subjective  to  the  objective.  I  wish 
I  could  say  as  much  for  many  of  my  con- 
temporaries. Then  in  our  age  as  in  all  great 
ages,  we  might  find  more  men  living,  not 
merely  thinking,  their  lives." 

In  after  years  I  remembered  Malory's 
words,  and  wondered  whether  he  had  found 
on  the  battlefield  sufficient  signs  of  the  activ- 
ity he  desired. 

"I  remember  how  entranced  I  was,"  he 
went  on,  altering  his  tone,  "by  the  sense  of 
ritual  in  the  labouring  year.  I  thought  of 
the  country  as  a  vast  cathedral,  teeming  with 
worshippers,  all  passing  in  unison  from  cere- 
mony to  ceremony  as  the  months  revolved. 
When  I  had  come  to  join  the  congregation, 
apse  and  column  and  nave  were  rich  with 
fruit,  the  common  fruit  of  the  English  coun- 
tryside, plum  and  apple,  damson  and  pear, 


HERITAGE  59 

curved  and  coloured  and  glowing  with  the 
quality  of  jewels;  then  busy  hands  came,  and 
packed  and  stored  the  harvest  into  bins,  and 
colour  went  from  the  place,  and  it  grew  dark. 
A  long  pause  full  of  meditation  fell.  The 
trees  slept,  men  worked  quickly  and  silently, 
no  more  than  was  imperative,  and  from  dark- 
ened corners  spread  the  gleam  of  fires  which 
they  had  lighted  for  their  warmth  and  com- 
fort. But  then,  oh!  then  the  place  was  sud- 
denly full  of  young  living  things,  and  of  a 
light  like  pearls;  children  laughed,  and  over 
the  ground  swept  a  tide  which  left  it  starred 
with  flowers,  and  a  song  arose,  full  of 
laughter  and  the  ripple  of  brooks.  The 
spring  had  come." 

He  was  strangely  exalted.  I  knew  that 
my  presence  was  forgotten. 

"The  shepherd  and  his  nymph  were  not 
long  lacking  in  this  Arcadian  world.  I  met 
them  crossing  the  fields,  I  spied  them  be- 
neath the  hedges,  I  learned  to  step  loudly 
before  entering  the  dairy  with  my  pails  of 
milk.  I  loved  them,  more  perhaps  as  a  part 
of  the  picture  than  for  their  own  sakes.  To 
me  they  were  Daphnis  and  Chloe,  not  the 
game-keeper's  son  and  the  farmer's  daughter. 


60  HERITAGE 

"The  match  was  favourably  viewed  by 
Amos  Pennistan,  though  Nancy  was  but 
eighteen  and  her  lover  two  years  older.  I 
was  honoured  by  an  invitation  to  the  wed- 
ding. I  had  already  woven  a  little  tale  for 
myself  around  those  country  nuptials,  a  cele- 
bration which,  although  slightly  irregular, 
would  have  become  my  lovers  better  than 
the  parochial  gentility  which  did  actually 
attend  their  union.  I  had  pictured  them  by 
a  brook,  Daphnis  in,  to  our  minds,  becom- 
ingly inadequate  clothing,  Chloe's  muslin 
supplemented  by  chains  of  meadow  flowers 
such  as  the  children  weave,  accompanied  by 
their  flocks  and  the  many  young  creatures, 
lambs,  kids,  and  calves,  as  are  characteristic 
of  that  least  virginal  of  seasons.  No  wooing; 
no;  or  if  there  must  be  wooing,  let  it  be 
sudden  and  primitive,  and  of  the  nature  of 
a  revelation,  and  let  the  oak  trees  be  their 
roof  that  night,  and  the  stars  the  witnesses 
of  their  natural  and  candid  passion.  But 
passion,  poor  soul!  was  put  into  stays  and 
stockings,  had  his  mad  gallop  checked  into  a 
walk,  while  fingers  poked,  eyes  peeped,  and 
tongues  clacked  round  the  prisoner.  Alas  for 
the  secret  of  Daphnis  and  Chloe;  shorn  of 


HERITAGE  61 

the  dignity  of  secrecy,  it  glared  in  the 
printed  column,  was  brayed  out  from  the 
pulpit,  was  totted  up  in  pounds  and  shil- 
lings. Food  entered  to  play  his  hospitable 
and  clumsy  part.  For  days  Mrs.  Pehnistan 
baked,  roasted,  and  kneaded  cakes  and  pas- 
tries, and  daily  as  she  did  it  her  temper  dis- 
improved.  Such  beauty  as  was  Chloe's, 
the  beauty  of  health  and  artlessness,  was 
devastated  by  the  atrocious  trappings  of 
respectability.  .  .  . 

"What  a  commonplace  tale!  you  will  say, 
and  a  vulgar  one  into  the  bargain!  and 
indeed  you  will  be  right,  if  a  miracle  can 
become  a  commonplace  through  frequent 
working,  and  if  you  look  upon  the  marriage 
of  two  young  creatures  as  a  social  con- 
venience, ordained,  as  we  are  told,  for  the 
procreation  of  lawful  children.  I  have  told 
you  nothing  but  the  love  of  rustic  clowns. 
But  as  the  great  words  of  language,  life 
and  death,*  love  and  hate,  sin,  birth,  war, 
bread  and  wine,  are  short  and  simple,  and 
as  the  great  classical  emotions  are  direct  and 
without  complexity,  so  my  rustic  clowns  are 
classical  and  enduring,  because  Adam  and 
Eve,  Daphnis  and  Chloe,  Dick  and  Nancy, 


62  HERITAGE 

are  no  more  than  interchangeable  names 
throughout  the  ages. 

"My  Arcady  missed  its  lovers.  I  realised 
after  they  had  gone  that  they  had  been  real 
lovers,  imperative  to  one  another,  and  that 
they  had  not  simply  drifted  into  marriage 
as  a  result  of  upbringing  and  propinquity. 
Had  their  parents'  consent  been  for  some 
reason  refused,  they  would,  I  am  convinced, 
have  gone  away  together.  Amos  Pennistan, 
in  one  of  his  rare  moments  of  expansion, 
told  me  as  much  himself.  'Nancy,'  he 
said,  'it  never  did  to  cross  Nancy.  She  was 
strong-willed  from  three  months  upward. 
Ruth,  now,  she's  a  steady,  tractable  girl  for 
all  her  dark  looks.  Of  the  two,  give  me  Ruth 
as  a  daughter.' 

"You  may  imagine  my  profound  interest 
in  the  study  of  this  strain  sprung  from  the 
stock  of  Concha  and  Oliver  Pennistan.  Here 
I  had  Nancy,  with  her  slight  English  pret- 
tiness,  and  the  fiery  will  which  might  never 
be  crossed;  and  Ruth,  who  looked  like  a 
gipsy  and  was  in  fact  steady  and  tractable. 
I  could  not  help  feeling  that  fate  had  her 
hand  on  these  people,  and  mocked  and 
pushed  them  hither  and  thither  in  the  thin 


HERITAGE  63 

disguise  of  heredity.  You  remember  Francis 
Galton  and  the  waltzing  mice,  how  he  took 
the  common  mouse  and  the  waltzing  mouse, 
and  mated  them,  and  how  among  their 
progeny  there  were  a  common  mouse,  a  black 
and  white  mouse,  and  a  mouse  that  waltzed; 
and  how  in  the  subsequent  generations  the  com- 
mon brown  house  mouse  predominated,  but 
every  now  and  then  there  came  a  mouse  that 
waltzed  and  waltzed,  restless  and  tormented, 
until  in  the  endless  pursuit  of  its  tail  it  died, 
dazed,  blinded,  perplexed,  by  the  relentless 
fate  that  had  it  in  grip.  Well,  I  had  my 
mice  in  a  cage,  and  Concha,  the  dancer,  the 
waltzing  mouse,  sat  mumbling  by  the  fire." 

I  shuddered.  I  did  not  understand 
Malory.  He  had  spoken  of  the  violence  of 
his  feeling  when  he  first  caught  sight  of 
Ruth;  I  could  not  reconcile  that  mood  with 
his  present  chill  analysis. 

"You  •  held  a  microscope  over  their  emo- 
tions," I  said. 

"I  was  afraid  there  would  not  be  many 
emotions  left  now  that  Nancy  was  gone,"  he 
replied  regretfully.  "I  missed  her  as  a 
study,  and  I  missed  her  as  an  intrinsic  part 
of  my  Arcady.  I  turned  naturally  for  com- 


64  HERITAGE 

pensation  to  Ruth  and  to  Rawdon  West- 
macott,  but  here  I  realised  at  once  that  I 
must  dissociate  the  figures  from  the  land- 
scape. They  would  not  fit.  No;  contrive 
and  compress  them  as  I  might,  they  would 
not  fit.  I  am  very  sensitive  to  the  relation 
of  the  picture  to  the  frame,  and  I  was 
troubled  by  their  southern  exuberance  in  the 
midst  of  English  hay  and  cornfields.  Now 
could  I  but  have  had  them  here  ..."  and 
again  the  cropping  goats,  the  mountains,  and 
the  torrent  rushed  across  the  magic  lantern 
screen  in  my  mind. 

"I  told  you  that  I  knew  young  West- 
macott  was  there  crazy  for  her;  he  had  no 
reserve  about  his  desire,  but  hung  round  the 
farm  with  a  straw  between  his  teeth,  his 
whip  smacking  viciously  at  his  riding-boots, 
and  his  eyes  perpetually  following  the  girl 
at  her  work.  He  would  look  at  her  with  a 
hunger  that  was  indecent.  Me  he  consid- 
ered with  a  dislike  that  amused  while  it 
annoyed  me.  I  often  left  my  work  when  I 
saw  him  looming  up  morosely  in  the  distance, 
but  old  Amos  dropped  me  a  hint,  very 
gently,  in  his  magnificently  grand  manner, 
after  which  I  no  longer  felt  at  liberty  to 


HERITAGE  65 

leave  the  two  alone.  If  they  wanted  private 
interviews  they  must  arrange  them  when  they 
knew  my  work  would  take  me  elsewhere. 

"I  was  not  sorry,  for  I  had  no  affection 
for  Westmacott,  and  it  amused  me  to  watch 
Ruth's  manner  towards  him.  I  had  heard  of 
a  woman  treating  a  man  like  a  dog,  but  I 
had  never  seen  an  expression  put  into  prac- 
tice as  I  now  saw  Ruth  put  this  expression 
into  practice  towards  her  cousin.  She  seemed 
to  have  absolute  confidence  in  her  power 
over  him.  When  it  did  not  suit  her  to  notice 
his  presence,  she  utterly  ignored  him,  busied 
her  tongue  with  singing  and  her  hands  with 
the  affair  of  the  moment,  never  casting  so 
much  as  a  glance  in  his  direction,  never 
asking  so  much  as  his  help  with  her  work; 
and  he  would  wait,  lounging  against  the 
doorway  or  against  a  tree,  silent,  devouring 
her  with  that  hungry  look  in  his  eyes.  Often 
I  have  seen  him  wait  in  vain,  returning  at 
last  to  his  home  without  a  word  from  her 
to  carry  with  him.  His  farm  suffered  from 
his  continual  absence,  but  he  did  not  seem 
to  care.  And  she?  did  she  get  much  satis- 
faction out  of  her  ill-treatment  of  his  devo- 
tion? I  never  knew,  for  she  never  alluded 


66  HERITAGE 

to  him,  but  I  can  only  suppose  that,  in  the 
devilish,  inexplicable  way  of  women,  she  did. 
In  his  presence  she  was  certainly  an  altered 
being;  all  her  gentleness  and  her  undoubted 
sweetness  left  her,  and  she  became  hard,  con- 
temptuous, almost  impudent.  I  disliked  her 
at  such  moments;  self-confidence  was  unbe- 
coming to  her. 

"Then,  when  she  wanted  him,  she  would 
whistle  him  up  like  a  little  puppy,  and  this 
also  I  disliked,  because  Westmacott,  what- 
ever his  faults,  wasn't  that  sort  of  man,  and 
it  offended  me  to  witness  the  slight  put  upon 
his  dignity.  He  didn't  seem  to  resent  it 
himself,  but  came  always,  obedient  to  her 
call.  And  he  would  do  the  most  extraor- 
dinary things  at  her  bidding.  Mrs.  Pen- 
nistan  told  me  one  day  that  when  the  pair 
were  children,  or,  rather,  when  Ruth  was  a 
child  of  ten  and  he  was  a  young  man  of 
twenty-two,  she  would  order  him  to  per- 
form the  wildest  feats  of  danger  and  diffi- 
culty. 

"  'And  he'd  do  what  she  told  him,  what's 
more,'  said  Mrs.  Pennistan,  to  whom  these 
reminiscences  were  obviously  a  source  of  de- 
light and  pride,  as  though  she,  poor  honest 


HERITAGE  67 

woman,  shone  a  little  with  the  reflected  glory 
of  her  daughter's  ten-year-old  ascendancy 
over  the  daring  young  man.  'Lord,  you 
would  have  laughed  to  see  her  standing  there, 
stamping  her  little  foot,  and  defying  him  to 
go  down  Bailey's  Hill  on  his  bicycle  without 
any  brakes,  and  him  doing  it,  with  that  twist 
in  the  road  and  all.  .  .  .  One  day  she 
wanted  him  to  jump  into  the  pond  with  all 
his  clothes  on,  and  when  he  wouldn't  do  that 
she  got  into  such  a  rage,  and  stalked  away, 
and  wouldn't  speak  to  him,  enough  to  make 
a  cat  laugh,'  and  Mrs.  Pennistan  with  a 
great  chuckle  doubled  herself  up,  rubbing 
her  fat  hands  in  enjoyment  up  and  down  her 
thighs,  straightening  herself  again  to  say, 
'  Oh,  comical !'  and  to  wipe  her  eye  with 
the  corner  of  her  apron! 

"  'Well,  now,  I  declare!'  she  said  sud- 
denly, craning  her  neck  to  see  over  the  hedge. 
4  If  she  isn't  at  her  old  tricks  again!' 

"I  followed  her  with  a  thrill  to  a  gap  in 
the  hedge  whither  she  had  darted — if  any 
one  so  portly  may  be  said  to  dart.  There, 
across  the  field,  by  the  gate,  stood  the  pair 
we  had  been  discussing,  and  I  was  actually 
surprised  to  find  that  the  little  ten-year-old 


68  HERITAGE 

girl  whom  I  had  half  expected  to  see  was 
a  well-grown  and  extremely  good-looking 
young  woman.  She  was  sitting  on  the  gate, 
and  Westmacott  was  lounging  in  his  usual 
attitude  beside  her;  even  at  that  distance  his 
singular  grace  was  apparent. 

"They  seemed  to  be  looking  at  the  two 
cart-horses  which  were  grazing,  loose  in  the 
field. 

"  'She's  up  to  something,  you  mark  my 
words,'  said  Mrs.  Pennistan  to  me. 

"I  agreed  with  her.  Ruth  was  pointing, 
and  the  imperious  tones  of  her  voice  floated 
across  to  us  in  the  still  evening;  Rawdon  was 
following  the  direction  of  her  finger,  and 
now  and  then  he  turned  in  his  languid,  easy 
way  that  covered — with  how  thin  a  veneer!— 
the  fierceness  beneath,  to  say  something  to 
his  companion.  I  saw  his  hand  drop  the 
switch  he  carried,  and  fall  upon  her  knee. 
Her  manner  became  more  wilful,  more  im- 
perative ;  had  she  been  standing  on  the  ground, 
she  would  have  stamped.  I  heard  Rawdon 
laugh  at  her,  but  that  seemed  to  make  her 
angry,  and  with  a  resigned  shrug  he  pushed 
himself  away  from  the  gate  and  began  to  walk 
across  the  field. 


HERITAGE  69 

'  'Lord  sakes,'  said  Mrs.  Pennistan  anx- 
iously, *  whatever  is  he  going  to  do?' 

"I  begged  her  to  keep  quiet,  because  I 
wanted  to  see  any  fun  that  might  be  going. 

"Mrs.  Pennistan  was  not  happy;  she 
grunted. 

"Ruth  was  perched  on  the  gate,  watching 
her  cousin.  I  was  delighted  to  have  an  oppor- 
tunity of  observing  them  when  they  thought 
themselves  alone.  Besides,  I  intensely  wanted 
to  see  what  Rawdon  was  going  to  do.  He 
walked  up  to  one  of  the  horses,  hand  out- 
stretched and  fingers  moving  invitingly,  but 
the  horse  snorted,  threw  up  its  head,  and  can- 
tered lumberingly  away  to  another  part  of  the 
field.  Rawdon  followed  it,  pulling  a  wisp  of 
grass  by  means  of  which  he  enticed  the  great 
clumsy  beast  until  he  was  able,  after  some 
stroking  and  patting,  to  lay  his  hand  upon  its 
mane.  Ruth,  on  the  gate,  clapped  her  hands 
and  called  out  gaily, — 

"  'Now  up  with  you!' 
'  'Lord  sakes !'  said  Mrs.  Pennistan  again. 

"I  saw  Westmacott  getting  ready  to  spring; 
he  was  agile  as  a  cat,  and  with  a  leap  and  a 
good  hold  on  the  mane  he  hoisted  himself  on 
to  the  horse's  back.  The  horse  galloped  madly 


70  HERITAGE 

round  the  field,  but  Westmacott  sat  him  easily 
• — not  a  very  wonderful  feat  for  a  farm-trained 
boy  to  accomplish.  As  he  passed  Ruth  he 
waved  his  hand  to  her. 

"She  wasn't  satisfied  yet;  she  called  out 
something,  and,  the  horse  having  come  to  a 
standstill,  I  saw  Rawdon  cautiously  turning 
himself  round  till  he  sat  with  his  face  to  the 
tail.  Then  he  drummed  with  his  heels  to  put 
the  horse  once  more  into  its  lumbering  gallop. 

"I  saw  the  scene  as  something  barbaric,  or, 
rather,  as  something  that  ought  to  have  been 
barbaric  and  only  succeeded  in  being  gro- 
tesque. Ruth  ought  to  have  been,  of  course,  an 
Arab  girl  daring  her  lover  in  the  desert  to 
feats  of  horsemanship  upon  a  slim  unbroken 
thoroughbred  colt.  Instead  of  that,  Westma- 
cott was  just  making  himself  look  rather  ridic- 
ulous upon  a  cart-horse.  But  the  intention 
was  there;  yes,  by  Jove!  it  was;  the  inten- 
tion, the  instinct;  he  was  wooing  her  in  a  way 
an  English  suitor  wouldn't  have  chosen,  nor 
an  English  girl  have  approved.  Mrs.  Pen- 
nistan,  however,  saw  the  matter  in  a  different 
light,  as  a  foolish  and  unbecoming  escapade 
on  the  part  of  her  daughter;  so,  thrusting 
herself  between  the  loose  staves  of  the  fence 


HERITAGE  71 

and  waving  her  hands  angrily,  she  called  out 
to  Westmacott  to  have  done  with  his  danger- 
ous nonsense. 

"He  slipped  off  the  horse's  back,  and  Ruth 
slipped  down  off  the  gate,  the  man  looking 
annoyed,  and,  in  a  slight  degree,  sheepish,  the 
girl  perfectly  self-possessed.  Mrs.  Pennistan 
rated  them  both.  Westmacott  kicked  sulkily 
at  the  toe  of  one  boot  with  the  heel  of  the 
other.  I  glanced  at  Ruth.  She  had  her  hands 
in  the  big  pockets  of  her  apron  and  was  look- 
ing away  into  the  sky,  with  her  lips  pursed 
for  an  inaudible  whistle.  Her  mother  stormed 
at  her. 

"  'You're  getting  too  old  for  such  nonsense. 
It  was  all  very  well  when  you  were  a  chit 
with  pig-tails  down  your  back.  And  you, 
Rawdon,  I  should  ha'  thought  you'd  ha' 
known  better.  What'd  Pennistan  say  if  he 
knew  of  your  larking  with  his  horses?  I've 
a  good  mind  to  tell  him.' 

"  'I've  done  the  brute  no  harm,'  he  mut- 
tered. 

"  'Well,  I'll  tell  him  next  time,  see  if  I 
don't.  What  did  you  do  it  for,  anyway?' 

"  'A  bit  of  fun  .  .  .  '  he  muttered  again, 
and,  his  smouldering  eyes  resting  resent- 


72  HERITAGE 

fully  upon  her,  he  added  something  about 
Ruth. 

"Ruth  brought  her  gaze  slowly  down  from 
the  clouds  to  bend  it  upon  her  cousin.  Their 
eyes  met  in  that  furnace  of  passion  and  hatred 
with  which  I  was  to  become  so  familiar. 

"'Ay,  Ruth  told  you,'  stormed  Ruth's 
mother.  'An  old  tale.  You  let  Ruth  alone 
and  she'll  let  you  alone,  and  we'll  all  be  better 
pleased.  Now  be  off  with  you,  Rawdon,  and 
you,  Ruth,  come  in  to  your  tea.' 

"Her  excitement  had  grown  as  it  beat  in 
vain  against  the  rock  of  Ruth's  indifference. 

"Ruth,"  said  Malory  after  a  long  pause,  and 
paused  again.  "She  is  a  problem  by  which 
I  am  still  baffled.  I  do  not  know  how  to 
speak  of  her,  lest  you  should  misunderstand 
me.  That  first  impression  of  which  I  have 
already  told  you  never  wore  off.  Do  not 
think  that  I  was  in  love  with  her.  I  was  not. 
I  am  not  that  sort  of  man.  But  I  was  always 
conscious  of  her,  and  I  cannot  imagine  the 
man  who,  seeing  her,  would  not  be  conscious 
of  her. 

"She  on  her  part,  was,  I  am  certain,  un- 
aware of  the  effect  she  produced.  Before  I 
had  been  very  long  on  the  farm  I  had  come 


HERITAGE  73 

to  the  conclusion  that  she  was  a  slow,  gentle, 
rather  stupid  girl,  obedient  to  her  parents  in 
all  things,  less  from  the  virtue  of  obedience 
than  from  her  natural  apathy.  She  and  I 
were  thrown  a  good  deal  together  by  reason 
of  my  work.  I  tried  to  draw  her  into  con- 
versation, but  no  sooner  had  I  enticed  her, 
however  laboriously,  into  the  regions  of  specu- 
lation than  she  dragged  me  back  into  the 
regions  of  fact.  'Ruth,'  I  would  say,  'does 
a  woman  cling  more  to  her  children  or  to  her 
husband?'  and  she  would  stare  at  me  and 
reply,  'What  things  you  do  say,  Mr.  Malory! 
and  if  you'll  excuse  me  I  have  the  dairy  to 
wash  down  yet.' 

"I  am  a  lover  of  experiments  by  nature, 
and  having  no  aptitude  for  science  it  is  neces- 
sarily with  human  elements  that  I  conjure  in 
my  crucible.  You  said  I  held  a  microscope 
over  emotions.  I  say,  rather,  that  I  hold  my 
subject,  my  human  being,  like  a  piece  of  cut 
glass  in  the  sunlight,  and  let  the  colours  play 
varyingly  through  the  facets. 

"Sunday  afternoon  was  our  holiday  on  the 
farm,  and  to  the  worker  alone  a  holiday  is 
passionately  precious.  It  is  all  a  matter  of 
contrast.  On  Sunday  afternoon  I  would 


74  HERITAGE 

take  Ruth  for  a  walk;  the  sheep-dog  came 
with  us,  and  we  would  go  through  shaw  and 
spinney  and  young  coppice,  and  along  high- 
hedged  lanes.  One  spot  I  loved,  called 
Baker's  Rough,  where  the  trees  and  under- 
growth had  been  cleared,  and  wild  flowers 
had  consequently  gathered  in  their  millions: 
anemones,  wood-violets,  bluebells,  cuckoo- 
flowers, primroses,  and  later  the  wild  straw- 
berry, and  later  still  the  scarlet  hips  of  the 
briar.  I  never  saw  a  piece  of  ground  so 
starred.  Here  we  often  passed,  and  we  would 
climb  the  hill-ridge  behind,  and  look  down 
over  the  Weald,  and  fancy  that  we  could  see 
as  far  as  Romney  Marsh,  where  Rye  and 
Winchelsea  keep  guard  over  the  melancholy 
waste  like  little  foreign  towns.  We  stood 
over  the  Weald,  seeing  both  fair  weather  and 
foul  in  the  wide  sweep  of  sky;  there  a  storm, 
and  there  a  patch  of  sun  on  the  squares  of 
meadow.  On  fine  days  great  pillows  of  white 
cloud  drifted  across  the  blue,  painted  by  a 
bold  artist  in  generous  sweeps  on  a  broad 
canvas,  and  those  great  clouds  were  repeated 
below  in  the  great  rounded  cushions  of  trees. 
We  looked  over  perhaps  fifty  miles  of  coun- 
try, yet  scarcely  one  house  could  we  distin- 


HERITAGE  75 

guish,  but  when  we  looked  for  a  long  time 
we  made  out,  here  and  there,  a  roof  or  an 
oast-house,  and  I  used  to  think  that,  like 
certain  animals,  these  dwellings  had  taken 
on  the  colour  of  the  land.  For  the  most  part, 
a  clump  of  trees  would  be  our  nearest  land- 
mark. 

"I  could  evoke  for  you  many  of  those  hours 
when,  with  the  girl  beside  me,  I  explored  the 
recesses  of  that  tender  country.  Without 
sharing  my  enthusiasm,  she  was  yet  singu- 
larly companionable,  happy  and  contented 
wherever  our  footsteps  led  us,  with  the  re- 
poseful quality  of  content  essential  to  a  true 
comrade." 

He  was  silent,  and  I  considered  him  cov- 
ertly as  he  sat  hugging  his  knees  and  staring 
into  the  distance  with  a  far-away  look  on  his 
face.  He  was,  I  thought,  a  queer  chap; 
queer,  lonely,  alien;  intensely,  damnably  ana- 
lytical. As  I  watched  him,  his  head  moved 
slightly,  in  a  distressed,  unconscious  manner, 
and  his  brow  contracted  into  a  frown  that 
emphasized  the  slight  negative  movement  of 
the  head.  Yet  he  did  not  share  his  difficul- 
ties with  me.  He  dismissed  them  with  a  sigh, 
and  a  gesture  of  the  hand,  and  resumed, — 


76  HERITAGE 

"I  mentioned  just  now  the  place  called 
Baker's  Rough.  Ruth  came  to  me  one  morn- 
ing with  glowing  eyes. 

"  'There's  flowers  such  as  you  never  saw 
on  Baker's  Rough  to-day,'  she  said  mysteri- 
ously. 

"I  tried  to  guess:  mulleins?  ragged  robins? 
periwinkles?  but  it  was  none  of  those.  She 
would  not  tell  me.  I  must  come  and  see  for 
myself. 

"We  set  out  after  tea  for  Baker's  Rough, 
walking  quickly,  for  we  had  only  an  hour  to 
spare.  As  we  drew  near,  the  sheep-dog,  who 
had  run  on  ahead,  set  up  a  tremendous  bark- 
ing at  the  gate.  I  cried, — 

"'Gipsies!' 

"There  was  a  real  gipsy  encampment,  cara- 
vans hung  with  shining  pots  and  pans,  gaudy 
washing  strung  out  on  a  line,  a  camp  fire, 
lean  dogs,  curly-headed  children.  Ruth  had 
guessed  aright  when  she  guessed  that  I  would 
be  pleased.  Amos  hated  gipsies,  but  I  loved 
them.  I've  never  outgrown  the  love  of  gipsies 
that  lurks  in  every  boy.  Have  you?" 

His  eyes  were  actually  sparkling  as  he 
asked  the  question,  and  I  was  overcome  by  a 
feeling  of  guilt.  Often  I  had  thought  this 


HERITAGE  77 

man  a  prig.  He  was  not  one,  but  simply 
an  odd  compound  of  philosopher  and  va- 
grant, poet  and  child.  I  resolved  not  to  be 
hard  on  him  again.  I  was  uncomfortably 
suspicious  that  it  was  I  who  had  been  the 
prig. 

"As  we  stood  looking,"  he  went  on,  "a 
woman  came  down  the  steps  of  a  caravan, 
and,  seeing  us,  invited  us  with  a  flashing 
smile  to  come  into  the  camp.  Ruth  was  de- 
lighted; she  followed  the  woman,  looking 
like  a  gipsy  herself,  I  thought,  and  the  chil- 
dren came  round  her,  little  impudent  beggars, 
staring  up  into  her  face  and  even  touching 
her  clothes.  She  only  laughed,  curiously  at 
home;  I  felt,  despite  my  love  of  the  roaming 
people,  over-educated  and  sophisticated.  I 
was  loving  the  camp  self-consciously,  almost 
voluntarily,  aware  that  I  was  loving  it  and 
rather  pleased  with  myself  for  doing 


so." 


"Your  mind  twists,"  I  interrupted,  "like 
the  point  of  a  corkscrew." 

He  laughed,  but  he  looked  a  little  hurt, 
taken  aback,  checked  on  his  course. 

"I  am  sorry,"  he  said,  "you  are  right  to 
snub  me  for  it.  Well,  Ruth  at  any  rate 


78  HERITAGE 

was  thoroughly  at  home,  and  I  could  see  that 
the  gipsy  was  sizing  her  up  with  her  shrewd 
eyes,  and  wondering  whether  I  should  be 
good  for  half-a-crown  or  only  a  shilling. 

"She  let  Ruth  sit  on  a  stool  and  stir  the 
pot  over  the  fire;  it  smelt  very  good,  though 
it  probably  contained  rabbits,  which  of  all 
foods  in  the  world  is  the  one  I  most  dislike. 
Then  she  offered,  inevitably,  to  tell  our  for- 
tunes, and  Ruth,  as  inevitably,  accepted  with 
alacrity.  She  stretched  out  her  little  brown 
hand,  strong  and  hard  with  work. 

"Of  course  the  gipsy  told  her  a  lot  of  non- 
sense, and  I  stood  by,  acutely  apprehensive 
that  I  should  be  drawn  in  an  embarrassing 
role  into  the  prognostications.  I  had  come 
there  with  Ruth;  therefore,  in  the  gipsy's 
eyes,  I  must  be  Ruth's  young  man.  I  took 
off  my  cap  to  let  the  gipsy  see  that  my  hair 
was  going  gray  on  the  temples.  But  it  wasn't 
any  use;  I  found  myself  appearing  as  the 
middle-aged  man  whose  heart  was  younger 
than  his  years,  and  who  would  finally  carry 
off  the  young  lady  as  his  bride. 

"I  tried,  of  course,  to  laugh  it  off,  but  to 
my  surprise  I  saw  Ruth  growing  very  red 
and  her  mouth  quivering,  so  I  told  the  gipsy 


HERITAGE  79 

we  had  heard  enough  and  that  we  had  no 
more  time  to  spare.  Ruth  rose,  the  pleasure 
all  died  away  from  her  face.  Then,  to  add 
to  the  misfortunes  of  the  evening,  I  heard  a 
scream  and  an  outburst  of  laughter  from  a 
neighbouring  caravan,  and,  looking  round,  I 
saw  Rawdon  Westmacott  jump  to  the 
ground  in  pursuit  of  a  young  gipsy  woman, 
whom  he  caught  in  his  arms  and  kissed. 

"I  looked  hastily  at  Ruth;  she  had  seen 
the  thing  happen.  The  distress  which  had 
troubled  her  face  gave  way  to  anger;  the 
name  'Rawdon !'  slipped  in  involuntary  in- 
dignation from  her  lips.  Then  an  instinct 
asserted  itself  to  pretend  that  she  had  seen 
nothing,  and  to  get  out  of  the  place  before 
her  cousin  had  discovered  her.  But  she  con- 
quered the  instinct,  staring  at  Westmacott 
till  he  turned  as  though  compelled  in  her 
direction. 

"Not  a  word  did  they  speak  to  one  another 
then,  but  in  the  silence  her  anger  and  con- 
tempt flashed  across  at  him  like  a  heliograph, 
and  his  vexation  flashed  back  at  her.  She 
stood  there  staring  at  him  deliberately,  staring 
him  out  of  countenance.  God!  how  vexed  and 
furious  he  was!  It  makes  me  laugh  now  to 


80  HERITAGE 

remember  it.  I  never  knew  what  a  fool  a 
man  could  look  when  he  was  caught  red- 
handed.  The  gipsy  only  giggled  vulgarly, 
and  tried  to  rearrange  her  tumbled  dress. 
Ruth  never  even  glanced  at  her,  and  presently 
she  removed  her  gaze  from  Westmacott — it 
seemed  quite  a  long  time,  though  I  suppose  it 
was  not  really  more  than  a  few  seconds — 
and  turned  to  me. 

"'Shall  we  go?'  she  said. 

"  'We  went,  Ruth  haughty,  and  I  at  a  loss 
for  words.  Decidedly  the  expedition  had  not 
been  a  success.  The  sheep-dog  ran  on  in 
front  and  tactfully  barked,  and  in  throwing 
little  stones  at  him  relations  were  re-estab- 
lished between  us.  I  was  prepared  not  to 
allude  to  the  incident,  but  Ruth  was  bolder; 
she  grappled  directly  with  the  difficulty. 

"  'You  saw  Rawdon?'  she  said  with  sup- 
pressed violence. 

"  'I  .  .  .  Well,  yes,  I  saw  him.' 

"  'What  was  he  doing  there?  He  was  up 
to  no  good  with  those  gipsy  women.' 

"I  had  nothing  to  say;  I  knew  she  was 
right. 

"  'He's  always  after  women/'  she  added 
violently. 


HERITAGE  81 

"  'I  knew  that  she  would  not  have  said  this 
to  me  had  she  not  been  completely  startled 
out  of  her  self-control. 

"  'He  cares  for  you  though,  in  his  heart,' 
I  said,  rather  inanely. 

"  'Does  he !'  she  exclaimed.  'It  doesn't 
look  like  it." 

"  'Well,'  I  said,  'he  rides  the  cart-horses 
bareback  with  his  face  to  their  tails  to  please 
you.' 

"Oh,  you  may  joke,'  she  said;  'he  wants 
to  please  me  now,  but  where'd  I  be  if  I  be- 
longed to  him?  He'd  sing  a  very  different 
song.' 

"  'It  rests  with  you,  after  all,'  I  ven- 
tured. 

"She  was  silent,  swishing  at  the  hedges  with 
her  stick  as  she  passed. 

"  'Doesn't  it?'  I  urged. 

'  'Oh — I  suppose  so.' 

'  'How  do  you  mean,  you  suppose  so? 
Nobody  wants  you  to  marry  him;  your  par- 
ents don't;  your  brothers  don't.  You  need 
never  see  him  again.  Send  him  away!' 

'  'I  can't  do  that,'  she  said  in  a  very  low 
voice. 

"  'Why  not?' 


82  HERITAGE 

"  'I  can't.  ...  I  sometimes  feel  I  can't 
escape  Rawdon,'  she  cried  out.  'He's 
always  been  there  since  I  can  remember,  I 
think  he  always  will  be  there.  There's  some- 
thing between  us;  it  may  be  fancy;  but 
there's  something  between  us.' 

"'Hush!'  I  said,  startled  as  I  was;  'here 
he  is.' 

"He  caught  us  up,  walking  rapidly,  and  I 
could  see  at  a  glance  that  he  was  determined 
to  have  it  out  with  Ruth  in  spite  of  my 
presence.  He  came  up  with  us,  and  he  took 
her  by  the  arm. 

"'Ruth!'  he  said,  in  a  vibrant  voice.  CI 
want  a  word  with  you.  You've  misjudged 
me.' 

"We  had  all  come  to  a  standstill. 

"  'I  can't  misjudge  what  I  see,'  she  an- 
swered very  coldly. 

'You  saw,  you  saw!  well,  and  what  of  it? 
That  was  only  a  bit  of  fun.  Damn  you, 
if  you  treated  me  a  bit  better  yourself  .  .  .  ' 

'  'Let  me  alone,  Rawdon,'  she  said,  shak- 
ing him  off.  'You  can  do  as  you  like,  that's 
your  affair,  only  let  me  alone.  I  don't  want 
to  talk  to  you.  You  go  your  way,  and  111 
go  mine.' 


HERITAGE  83 

"  'Your  way!'  he  said,  scowling  at  me. 
'Your  way's  my  way,  as  you'll  learn.' 

"  'Now  don't  you  come  bullying  me, 
Rawdon,'  she  said,  but  I  think  she  was 
frightened. 

"  'Well,  you  speak  me  fair  and  I  won't 
bully  you.  I  was  up  to  no  harm,  only  larking 
around.  .  .  .  Come,  Ruthie,  haven't  you  a 
smile  for  me?  You  treat  me  cruel  bad  most 
days,  you  know,  and  I  don't  take  offence. 
Ruthie!' 

"  'We're  not  alone,  Rawdon,'  she  said 
sharply. 

"I  thought  he  muttered,  'No,  damn  it!' 
between  his  teeth,  and  just  then  I  felt  a  hand 
close  over  my  wrist  on  the  side  farthest  from 
Westmacott,  a  little  imploring  hand  that 
checked  in  the  nick  of  time  my  impulse  to> 
move  away.  She  spoke  bravely,  as  though  the 
contact  gave  her  courage. 

"  'That'll  do,  now,  Rawdon,  don't  come 
making  a  scene.  There's  nothing  to  make  a 
scene  about.' 

"  'But  you'll  not  sulk  me?'  he  said. 

"  'I'll  not  sulk  you,  why  should  I?' 

"  'Then  give  me  a  kiss,  for  peace.' 

"  'Let  me  be,  Rawdon.' 


84  HERITAGE 

"She  was  troubled,  now  that  her  anger  had 
passed.  I  would  have  walked  on,  but  for 
the  dry,  fevered  fingers  gripping  my  wrist. 

"A  new  idea  had  taken  possession  of  Raw- 
don's  mind;  his  eyes  glowed  in  the  jioble, 
architectural  carving  of  his  face,  that  so 
belied  the  coarseness  of  his  nature. 

"'I'm  your  cousin,  Ruth!'  he  cried  satiri- 
cally. 

"He  caught  her  by  the  shoulder  and  turned 
her  towards  him.  I  thought  she  would  have 
struggled,  and  indeed  I  saw  the  preparatory 
tautening  of  her  frame;  then  to  my  aston- 
ishment she  yielded  suddenly,  flexible  and 
abandoned,  and  he  kissed  her  regardless  of 
my  presence;  kissed  her  ferociously,  and 
pushed  her  from  him. 

'  'I'll  see  you  to-morrow?'  he  asked. 

"  'To-morrow,  likely,'  she  answered  in- 
differently, with  a  quick  return  to  her  old 
contemptuous  manner. 

"He  nodded,  put  his  hand  on  the  top  bar 
of  the  adjoining  gate,  and  vaulted  it,  walking 
off  rapidly  across  the  fields  in  the  direction  of 
his  own  farm. 

"'And  let  me  tell  you,'  said  Ruth,  as 
though  she  were  continuing  an  uninterrupted 


HERITAGE  85 

conversation,  "  he'll  be  back  around  that  gipsy 
place  to-night  as  sure  as  geese  at  Michaelmas. 
He's  as  false  as  can  be,  is  Rawdon." 

"  "Then  I  think  you  were  weak  with  him/ 
I  said.  'Are  you  afraid  of  him?' 

"'It's  like  this,'  said  Ruth,  with  that 
great  uneasy  heave  of  the  uneducated  when 
confronted  with  the  explanation  of  a  prob- 
lem beyond  the  scope  of  their  vocabulary, 
'we  never  get  straight.  Rawdon  and  I.  He 
cringes  to  me,  and  then  I  bully  him;  or  else 
he  bullies  me,  and  then  I  cringe  to  him.  But 
quarrel  as  we  may,  we  always  come  together 
again.  It's  no  good,'  she  said  with  a  note  of 
despair  in  her  expressive  voice  like  the  melan- 
choly of  a  violin,  'we  can't  get  away  from 
one  another.  We  always  come  together 
again.' 

"I  was  sad;  I  foresaw  that  those  two 
would  drift  into  marriage  from  pure  physical 
need,  though  there  might  well  be  more  hatred 
than  love  between  them. 

"In  the  meantime  I  tried,  not  always  very 
successfully,  to  keep  Ruth  away  from  him; 
she  liked  being  with  me,  I  know,  and  I 
think  she  even  welcomed  a  barrier  between 
herself  and  her  ail-too  compelling  cousin, 


86  HERITAGE 

and  so  it  came  about  that  our  Sunday  after- 
noons were,  as  I  have  told  you,  usually  spent 
together.  There  were  times  when  she  broke 
away  from  me,  when  the  physical  craving 
became,  I  suppose,  too  strong  for  her,  and 
she  would  go  back  to  Rawdon.  But  for  the 
most  part  she  would  come  after  dinner  on 
Sundays,  silent  and  reserved,  to  see  if  I  was 
disposed  for  a  walk.  She  would  come  in  her 
daily  untidiness,  with  the  colour  blowing  in 
her  cheeks,  as  beautiful  and  as  wild  as  a 
flower.  I  used  to  feel  sorry  for  Westmacott 
and  his  hot  blood. 

"On  these  afternoons  I  tried  my  experi- 
ments on  Ruth,  and  I  sometimes  wonder 
whether  she  ever  caught  me  at  the  game, 
for  she  would  give  me  a  scared,  distrustful 
glance,  and  turn  her  head  away.  She  was 
curiously  lazy  for  so  hard  a  worker,  and  in 
sudden  indolence  she  would  refuse  to  move, 
but  would  lie  on  the  ground  idle  and  half 
asleep,  and  would  do  nothing  but  eat  the 
sweets  I  gave  her.  I  never  saw  a  book  in 
her  hand.  Once,"  said  Malory,  throwing  a 
bit  of  wood  at  the  goats,  "I  thought  I  would 
convert  her  to  Art.  I  brought  out  some 
treasured  books,  and  showed  her  the  pictures ; 


HERITAGE  87 

she  was  neither  bewildered,  nor  bored,  nor  im- 
pressed, nor  puzzled;  she  simply  thought 
the  masterpieces  unspeakably  funny.  She 
laughed.  ...  I  was  absurdly  offended  at 
first,  then  I  began  to  come  round  to  her 
point  of  view,  and  now  I  am  not  at  all  sure 
that  I  don't  agree.  She  opened  out  for  me  a 
new  attitude. 

"After  the  failure  of  my  pictures,  I  tried 
her  with  a  more  tangible  object.  I  took  her 
to  Penshurst.  In  telling  you  of  this  I  am 
making  a  very  real  sacrifice  of  my  pride  and 
self-respect,  for,  as  sometimes  happens,  I  have 
realised  since,  from  my  disinclination  to  dwell 
in  my  own  mind  upon  the  incident,  that  the 
little  rapier  of  humiliation  went  deeper  than 
I  thought,  down  to  that  point  in  the  heart 
where  indifference  ceases  and  essentials 
begin." 

As  Malory  said  this,  he  looked  at  me  with 
his  quizzical,  interrogative  expression,  as  if 
to  see  how  I  was  taking  it.  I  noticed  then 
that  he  had  a  crooked  smile  which  gave  to 
his  face  a  quaint  attraction.  He  was  a 
clean-shaven  man,  with  lean  features  and  a 
dark  skin ;  graying  hair ;  I  supposed  him  to  be 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  forty. 


88  HERITAGE 

"When  I  asked  Ruth  if  she  would  come  to 
Penshurst  with  me,"  he  continued,  "she  said 
she  must  change  her  dress.  She  was  absent 
for  about  half  an  hour,  while  I  waited  in  the 
garden  and  threw  stones  for  the  sheep-dog. 
[When  she  joined  me  I  saw  that  she  had  done 
her  best  to  smarten  herself  up;  she  had 
frizzed  her  hair  and  put  on  a  hat,  and  her 
blouse  was  decorated  with  some  sort  of  lace 
— I  can't  give  you  a  cleser  description  than 
that.  I  scarcely  recognised  her,  and  though 
I  felt  that  I  was  expected  to  make  some 
comment  I  knew  at  the  same  time  that  I  was 
physically  unable  to  do  so.  'How  nice  you 
look!'  were  the  words  that  my  will  hammered 
out  in  my  brain,  but  the  words  that  left  my 
lips  were,  'Come  along.' 

"We  started  thus  unpropitiously,  and  the 
strain  between  us  was  tautened  at  every  step 
by  the  mood  of  excitement  which  possessed 
her.  I  had  never  known  her  like  this  before. 
Usually  she  was  quiet,  lazy  about  her  speech, 
and  not  particularly  apposite  when  she  did 
make  a  remark,  yet  I  had  always  found  her  & 
satisfactory  companion.  To-day  she  chattered 
volubly,  and  the  painful  conviction  grew  upon 
me  that  she  was  trying  to  be  coy;  she  hinted 


HERITAGE  89 

tHat  she  had  broken  an  appointment  with 
Westmacott;  I  became  more  and  more  silent 
and  miserable.  I  had  anticipated  with  so 
much  pleasure  our  going  to  Penshurst,  and 
I  knew  now  that  the  afternoon  was  to  be  a 
failure.  When  we  reached  the  house,  bad 
became  worse;  Ruth  giggled  in  the  rooms, 
and  the  housekeeper  looked  severely  at  her. 
She  made  terrible  jokes  about  the  pictures; 
giggled  again;  crammed  her  handkerchief 
against  her  mouth;  pinched  my  arm.  At 
last  my  endurance  gave  out,  and  I  said, 
'We  had  better  go  home,'  and  I  thanked 
the  housekeeper,  and  said  we  would  find  our 
own  way  out. 

"Ruth  was  very  crestfallen  as  we  went 
silently  across  the  park;  she  walked  with 
hanging  head  beside  me,  and  as  I  looked 
down  on  the  top  of  her  absurd  hat  I  was  al- 
most sorry  for  her,  but  I  was  really  annoyed, 
and  childishly  disappointed,  so  I  said  nothing, 
and  stared  gloomily  in  front  of  me.  I 
thought  that  if  I  thus  marked  my  disapproval 
of  her  sudden  mood  she  would  never  repeat 
the  experiment,  and  that  next  day  she  would 
return  to  her  blue  linen  dress  and  her  habit- 
ual reserve.  I  did  not  think  she  would  make 


90  HERITAGE 

a  scene,  but  rather  that  she  would  be  glad 
to  pass  over  the  disaster  in  silence. 

"I  was  surprised  when  she  stopped 
abruptly. 

"  'I  suppose  you'll  never  take  me  out 
again? '  she  said,  as  though  the  idea  had  been 
boiling  wildly  in  her  brain  till  it  found  a 
safety  valve  in  her  lips. 

"  'My  dear  Ruth  .  .  .  '  I  began. 

"'How  cold  you  are!'  she  cried  violently, 
and  she  stamped  her  foot  upon  the  ground. 
'Why  don't  you  get  angry  with  me?  shake 
me?  abuse  me?  at  any  rate,  say  something. 
Only  "  my  dear  Ruth."  I  suppose  I'm  not 
good  enough  for  you  to  speak  to.  If  that's 
it,  say  so.  I'll  go  home  a  different  way. 
What  have  I  done?  What's  wrong?  What 
have  I  done?' 

"I  realised  that  she  was  in  the  grip  of  an 
emotion  she  could  not  control.  Such  emo- 
tions came  over  one  but  seldom  in  ordinary 
life,  but  when  they  come  they  are  uncon- 
trollable, for  they  spring  from  that  point  in 
the  heart,  which  I  was  speaking  of,  where 
indifference  ceases  and  essentials  begin.  Still, 
while  realising  this,  I  hardened  myself  against 
her. 


HERITAGE  91 

"  'Nothing,'  I  said,  adding,  'except  failed 
to  be  yourself.' 

"  'What  do  you  want  me  to  be?'  she 
asked,  staring  at  me. 

"  'My  dear  Ruth,'  I  said,  'I  like  you  in 
blue  linen.' 

"I  swear  I  only  meant  it  symbolically;  it 
was  perhaps  foolish  of  me  to  think  she  would 
understand.  She  went  on  staring  at  me  for 
a  moment,  then  a  change  came  over  her  face, 
a  wounded  look,  horrible  to  see,  and  I  felt 
I  had  hurt  a  child,  most  grievously,  but  be- 
fore I  could  rush  into  the  breach  I  had 
made  and  build  it  up  again  with  fair  words, 
she  had  dropped  her  face  into  her  hands  and 
I  saw  that  her  shoulders  were  shaking.  She 
uttered  no  word  of  reproach  or  self -justifica- 
tion, no  plea;  thereby  increasing  her  pathos 
a  hundredfold. 

"I  was  distressed  and  embarrassed  beyond 
measure;  I  hated  myself,  but  I  no  longer 
hated  her.  I  had  begun  to  like  her  again  in 
the  brief  period  of  her  rage,  and  now  in  the 
period  of  her  despair  I  liked  her  again  com- 
pletely. I  implored  her  to  stop  crying,  and 
I  tried  confusedly  to  explain  my  meaning. 

"She  would  have  none  of  my  explanations, 


92  HERITAGE 

but  turned  on  me  cheeks  flaming  with  a  shame 
which  forbade  any  allusion  to  her  clothes.  I 
could  see  that  she  was  trembling  from  head 
to  foot,  and  by  the  force  of  her  authority  over 
me  I  gauged  the  force  of  her  emotion  over 
herself.  Genius  and  passion  are  alike  com- 
pelling. Here  was  a  Ruth  I  did  not  know, 
but  it  was  a  Ruth  I  had  desired  to  see,  and 
I  triumphed  secretly  for  having  divined  her 
under  the  Ruth  of  every  day. 

"Well,"  said  Malory,  "I  have  made  my  con- 
fession now,  for  it  partakes  of  the  nature  of 
confession.  I  never  saw  that  piteous  finery 
again,  and  I  never  saw  the  mood  that  matched 
it.  She  calmed  down  at  length,  and  we  made 
a  compact  of  friendship,  but  if  ever  the  name 
of  Penshurst  arose  in  conversation  I  saw  the 
scarlet  flags  fluttering  in  her  cheeks. 

"Meanwhile*  the  familiarity  of  the  place 
grew  on  me,  as  I  had  foreseen,  and  there  were 
many  inmates  of  the  farm,  now  old-estab- 
lished, whom  I  had  known  since  their  birth; 
plants  and  animals  alike.  We  were  haymak- 
ing, a  common  enough  pursuit,  but  to  me  full 
of  delight;  I  loved  the  ready  fields,  the  un- 
ceasing whirr  and  rattle  of  the  cutter,  the 
browniner  jgrrass  as  it  lay  where  it  had  fallen, 


HERITAGE  93 

and  the  rough  wooden  rake  in  my  hand.  I 
loved  the  curve  of  the  fields  over  the  hill,  and 
the  ridges  of  hay  stretching  away  like  fur- 
rows. Above  all  I  loved  the  great  stack, 
which  swallowed  up  the  cart-loads  one  by 
one,  and  the  green  tarpaulins  furled  above 
it,  which  made  it  look  like  a  galleon  with  sails 
and  rigging. 

"I  told  you  I  had  dipped  into  many  things ; 
I  worked  once  on  a  Greek  trader  which  plied 
with  figs  and  oranges  from  Smyrna  to 
Corinth  through  the  islands  of  the  .ZEgean. 
It  was  a  bulky,  mediaeval-looking  vessel, 
with  vast  red  sails,  very  little  changed,  I 
should  imagine,  from  the  one  in  which 
Ulysses  sailed  on  his  immortal  journey.  I 
learnt  a  certain  amount  about  the  orange 
trade,  but  I  learnt  another  thing  from  that 
Greek  ship  which  I  value  more:  I  learnt 
about  colour,  hot,  tawny  colour,  that  ran  the 
gamut  from  the  bronze  limbs  of  the  crew, 
through  the  Venetian  sails,  to  the  fire  of  the 
fruit,  and  echoed  again  in  the  sunset  behind 
Hymettus,  and  dropped  in  the  cool  aqua- 
marine of  the  waves  near  the  shore,  and  deep- 
ened into  sapphire  as  I  hung  over  the  sides 
of  the  ship  above  the  moving  water.  From 


94  HERITAGE 

this  rich  canvas  I  had  come  to  the  grays  and 
greens  and  browns  of  England,  the  dove  after 
the  bird  of  Paradise,  and  do  you  know,  I 
felt  the  relationship  of  the  two,  the  relation- 
ship of  labour  between  the  Greek,  the  almost 
pirate,  crew,  and  the  English  farmer  with 
his  classic  and  primitive  tools,  the  brother- 
hood between  the  sweeping  scythe  and  the 
dipping  oar,  between  the  unwieldy  stack  and 
the  clumsy  vessel. 

"The  scent  of  the  hay  is  in  my  nostrils, 
and  the  stirring  is  in  my  arms  to  throw  up 
my  fork-load  upon  the  cart.  We  worked 
sometimes  till  ten  at  night,  a  race  with  the 
weather;  we  worked  by  sunlight  and  moon- 
light, and  I  preferred  the  latter.  You  may 
think  that  I  preferred  it  because  it  pleased 
me  to  see  the  round  yellow  moon  come  up 
from  behind  the  trees,  and  light  that  whole- 
some scene  with  its  unwholesome  radiance, 
like  a  portrait  of  Hercules,  naked,  by 
Aubrey  Beardsley?  Well,  you  are  wrong.  I 
preferred  it  because  I  got  less  hot. 

"Rawdon  Westmacott  used  to  come  over 
to  help  us.  A  pair  of  extra  hands  was  wel- 
come, but  I  think  old  Pennistan  would  rather 


HERITAGE  95 

the  hands  had  been  tied  on  to  any  other  body. 
It  was  quite  clear  that  he  neglected  his  own 
farm  only  to  be  near  Ruth,  and  I  had  long 
since  gathered  that  the  Pennistans  would 
never  willingly  consider  him  as  a  son-in-law. 
I  sympathised  with  them.  He  was  an  un- 
ruly man,  as  wild  as  he  was  handsome,  a 
byword  among  the  young  men  of  the  coun- 
tryside; prompt  with  his  fist — that  was  per- 
haps the  best  thing  that  could  be  said  of 
him — foul  with  his  tongue,  intolerable  when 
in  his  cups.  So  quarrelsome  was  he  that  even 
when  sober  he  would  seek  out  cause  for 
insult.  I  myself,  who  in  my  capacity  of 
guest  took  every  precaution  to  avoid  any 
unpleasantness,  had  an  ominous  encounter 
with  him.  I  had  spent  a  day  in  London, 
and  returned  with  various  little  gifts  which 
I  had  thought  would  please  the  Pennistans; 
to  Ruth  I  brought  a  pair  of  big,  round,  brass 
ear-rings  and  a  coloured  scarf,  for  I  had  a 
fancy  to  see  her  tricked  out  as  a  gipsy.  It 
entertained  me  to  see  her,  who  as  I  have  told 
you  was  habitually  slow  of  mind,  enthusiasm, 
and  speech,  respond  with  some  latent  instinct 
to  the  gaudy  things.  She  ran  to  the  glass  in 


96  HERITAGE 

the  kitchen  and  began  to  screw  the  rings  on 
to  her  unpierced  ears. 

"  'You  must  learn  to  dance  now,  Ruth,' 
I  said. 

"She  looked  round  at  me,  and  in  the  turn 
of  her  head  and  the  flash  of  the  rings  I 
seemed  to  see  Concha  of  the  gipsy  booth. 

"  'Father  doesn't  hold  with  dancing,'  she 
replied. 

"'He  isn't  here  to  see,'  I  said.  'Won't 
you  try  a  step?' 

"She  blushed.  It  was  a  pretty  sight  to  see 
her  blush. 

"  'I  don't  know  how,'  she  said  awkwardly, 
looking  away  from  me  into  the  glass  as  she 
wound  the  scarf  round  her  neck. 

"  'Well,'  I  said,  'will  you  learn  if  I  have 
you  taught?' 

"She  burst  into  the  shrill  laugh  of  the 
common  girl,  and  cried,  'Get  along  with 
you,  Mr.  Malory!  making  fun  of  a  poor  girl 
like  me.' 

"Concha  was  gone,  but  I  struggled  to 
revive  her,  without  conviction,  and  with  a 
queer  blankness  in  my  heart.  At  least,"  said 
Malory,  correcting  himself,  "it  wasn't  my 


HERITAGE  97 

heart,  but  my  mind,  my  sense  of  Tightness, 
that  tvas  disappointed. 

"  'I  mean  it,'  I  said.  Til  have  you 
taught  the  dances  of  Spain.' 

"  'Spain?'  she  echoed,  with  a  frown  gen- 
uinely puzzled,  so  remote  from  her  was  all 
thought  of  the  land  of  her  wandering  fore- 
fathers. 

"I  risked  a  bold  remark. 

"  'Your  great-grandmother,  I've  no  doubt, 
could  give  you  a  hint  of  the  Spanish  dances." 

"Then  she  remembered,  but  the  recollection 
came  to  her,  I  could  see,  from  afar  off,  with 
the  unreality  of  a  date  in  history,  poignant 
enough  at  the  time. 

"At  that  moment  a  knock  fell  upon  the 
door,  and  Rawdon  Westmacott  came  in  with- 
out waiting  to  be  bidden.  He  saw  Ruth 
standing  there,  and  stopped.  Then  he  caught 
sight  of  me  by  the  wide  fireplace.  His  eyes 
travelled  swiftly  between  us,  and  I  saw  the 
rage  and  the  prompt  conclusion  spring  into 
them.  In  fact,  I  never  saw  a  man  so  sud- 
denly full  of  barely  contained  anger.  He 
would  have  given  a  great  deal,  I  am  sure, 
to  have  insulted  me  openly. 


98  HERITAGE 

"We  stood  for  a  moment  in  silence,  the 
three  of  us,  then  Westmacott's  voice  came  out 
of  space  to  break  the  moment's  eternity. 

"That's  fine  toggery,  Ruth,  you've  got 
on,"  he  said. 

"She  looked  at  him  without  answering,  her 
breath  beginning  to  come  a  little  quicker.  I 
watched  them  both;  I  was  angry,  but  not 
too  angry  to  be  interested.  I  felt  the  man's 
power;  his  brutality;  and  I  remember  think- 
ing that  something  in  her — was  it  primitive 
woman? — responded  to  something — was  it 
primitive  man? — in  him.  At  the  same  time 
I  knew  that  waves  of  hatred  vibrated  between 
them;  that,  if  she  was  attracted,  she  was  no 
less  repelled.  Did  I  touch  then,  in  an  unex- 
pected moment  of  insight,  the  vital  spot  of 
that  enigma?  I  believe  that  I  was  very  near 
the  truth.  I  knew  that  the  situation  was  not 
by  any  means  an  important  one,  but  it  was 
nevertheless  a  battle,  a  clash  of  wills,  and  as 
such  I  thought  it  significant. 

"I  saw  her  hand  travel  upward,  and  slowly 
begin  to  unwind  the  scarf. 

"  'It's  ill  becoming  you,  my  girl,'  he  went 
on,  with  the  threatening  note  rising  in  his 
voice.  'I'd  sooner  see  you  simple,  Ruth/ 


HERITAGE  99 

and  I  thought  of  the  lashing  sea  when  the 
wind  begins  to  swirl  like  a  dragon's  tail  along 
the  beach. 

"I  tried  to  intervene. 

"'I  brought  .  .  .  '  I  began  to  say,  but 
catching  the  glance  which  Ruth  turned  upon 
me  I  was  silent. 

"  'You'd  best  take  them  off,'  Westmacott 
said. 

"Slowly  she  took  the  scarf,  and  laid  it  on 
the  table,  slowly  she  unfastened  the  rings 
and  laid  them  beside  the  scarf.  I  could  have 
wrung  his  neck,  but  for  the  sake  of  the  girl 
I  remained  quiet ;  I  knew  that  she  would  have 
to  pay  for  my  championship,  and,  besides,  I 
was  ignorant  of  what  understanding  existed 
between  them.  Underneath  my  anger,  I  was 
conscious  of  a  vague  irritation  creeping  over 
me,  that  she  had  taken  his  bullying  so  meekly 
and  had  not  flown  out  at  him,  with  her  brass 
ear-rings  clanking  in  her  ears,  as  she  had 
flown  out  at  me  on  the  day  of  Penshurst. 

"Westmacott  was  clever  enough  to  ignore 
the  obvious  fact  that  I  had  been  the  giver  of 
the  ornaments.  He  swept  them  off  the  table 
into  his  pocket,  and,  I  presume,  threw  them 
into  the  horse-pond,  and  would  have  liked  to 


100  HERITAGE 

throw  me  after;  but  that  Ruth  should  not 
go  without  a  present  I  ordered  for  her  a  pair 
of  mice  in  a  cage,  a  brown  mouse  and  a 
Japanese  waltzing  mouse.  She  thought  it 
extremely  diverting  to  see  the  black  and 
wiiite  mouse  turning  unceasingly  after  its 
tail,  whiLe  the  brown  mouse  watched  it  in  per- 
plexity mingled  with  disapproval  from  a 
corner  of  the  cage." 


IV 


"EITHER  Westmacott  did  not  notice  these 
new  inhabitants  of  the  kitchen  window-sill, 
for  there  they  lived,  among  the  pots  of  red 
geranium,  or  he  considered  he  had  humiliated 
me  sufficiently;  at  any  rate  he  made  no  allu- 
sions to  the  cage.  As  for  Ruth  and  I,  we 
went  for  several  uncomfortable  days  without 
reference  to  the  scene,  but  there  it  was  be- 
tween us,  an  awkward  bond,  until  she  broke 
the  silence. 

'"We  were  in  the  dairy;  I  had  brought  in 
the  newly-filled  milk  pails,  and  she  stood 
churning  butter  upon  a  marble  slab.  I  liked 
the  dairy,  with  its  great  earthenware  pans  of 
milk,  its  tiled  floor,  and  its  cleanliness  like 
the  cleanliness  of  a  ship.  To-day  it  was  full 
of  the  smell  of  the  buttermilk. 

"  'Mr.  Malory,'  said  Ruth,  suddenly  turn- 
ing to  me,  'I've  never  thanked  you  for  under- 
standing me  the  other  night.  I  didn't  think 
any  the  worse  of  you,  I'd  like  to  say,  for 
keeping  back  your  words.' 

101 


102  HERITAGE 

""''So  top.g  as  you  didn't  think  I  was  afraid 
of  your  savage  young  friend  .  .  .  '  I  said. 

"  'No,  no,  I  didn't  think  that/  she  an- 
swered with  her  quick  blush.  'He  says  more 
than  he  means,  Rawdon  does,  if  he's  roused, 
and  it's  best  to  give  in.' 

"  'You  give  in  a  good  deal  to  people,'  I 
said  with  that  same  irritation  at  her  meekness. 

"  'It's  easier  .  .  .  '  she  murmured. 

"Ah?  so  that  was  it?  not  tameness  of  spirit, 
but  mere  indolence?  I  felt  strangely  com- 
forted. At  the  same  time  I  thought  I  would 
take  advantage  of  our  enforced  confidences 
to  make  some  remark  about  the  young  man  of 
whom  her  parents  had  disapproved. 

"  'Westmaeott  .  .  .'I  said.  'He  must 
be  a  difficult  man  to  deal  with?  Even  for  you, 
whose  word  should  be  law  to  him?' 

"But  my  attempt  wasn't  a  success,  for  she 
shut  up  like  a  box  with  a  spring  in  the  lid. 
I  saw  that  I  should  never  get  'her  to  discuss 
Rawdon  Westmaeott  with  me,  and  I  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  she  must  be  fond  of  the 
fellow,  and  I  could  understand  it,  regrettable 
as  I  thought  it,  for  he  was  an  attractive  man  in 
his  dare-devil  way. 

"I  soon  had  cause  to  regret  my  conclusion 


HERITAGE  103 

more,  for  I  surprised  the  secret  of  a  young 
handy-man  who  worked  sometimes  on  the 
farm  and  for  whom  I  had  always  had  a  great 
liking.  He  came  to  fell  timber  when  old 
Pennistan  wanted  him,  and  he  also  did  the 
thatching  of  the  smaller,  out-lying  stacks. 
I  went  to  help  him  at  this  work  one  day  when 
his  mate  was  laid  up  with  a  sprained  ankle. 
He  told  me  he  had  learnt  his  craft  from  his 
father,  who  had  been  a  thatcher  for  fifty 
years;  it  gave  me  great  satisfaction  to  think 
that  a  man  could  spend  half  a  century  on  so 
monotonous  a  craft,  constantly  crawling  on 
the  sloping  tops  of  ricks,  with  a  bit  of  carpet 
tied  round  his  knees,  and  his  elementary  tools 
— a  mallet,  a  long  wooden  comb,  a  bundle  of 
sticks,  and  a  pocketful  of  pegs — always  ready 
to  his  hand,  while  his  mate  on  the  ground 
pulled  out  the  straw  from  the  golden  truss, 
made  the  ends  even,  and  lifted  the  prepared 
bundle  on  a  pitchfork  up  to  the  thatcher.  My 
young  friend  told  me  the  art  of  thatching  was 
dying  out.  I  tried  my  hand  at  it,  but  the 
straw  blew  about,  and  I  found  I  could  not 
lay  two  consecutive  strands  in  place. 

"He  was  a  fine  young  man,  whose  knowl- 
edge of  the  country  seemed  as  instinctive  as 


104  HERITAGE 

it  was  extensive.  I  said  I  surprised  his 
secret.  I  should  not  have  used  the  word 
surprise.  It  shouted  itself  out  from  his  candid 
eyes  as  he  rested  them  on  Ruth;  she  had 
brought  out  his  dinner,  and  leaned  against 
his  ladder  for  a  moment's  talk;  he  looked 
down  at  her  from  where  he  knelt  on  the  rick, 
and  if  ever  I  saw  adoration  in  a  man's  face 
I  saw  it  on  his  just  then.  I  felt  angry  with 
Ruth  in  her  serene  unconsciousness.  She  had 
no  right  to  disturb  men  with  her  more  than 
beauty.  I  wondered  whether  she  was  or  was 
not  pledged  to  Rawdon  Westmacott,  and 
the  more  of  a  riddle  she  appeared  to  me  the 
angrier  I  felt  against  her. 

"I  was  dissatisfied  with  the  whole  situation; 
I  could  not  manipulate  my  puppets  as  I 
would;  I  felt  that  I  held  a  handful  of  scat- 
tered pearls,  and  could  find  no  string  on 
which  to  hang  them.  In  my  discontent  I 
went  into  the  kitchen  to  look  at  the  mice,  they 
were  still  and  huddled  in  separate  corners. 
Amos  and  his  wife  were  sitting  at  the  table 
drinking  large  cups  of  tea,  Amos,  full- 
bearded,  and  in  his  shirt  sleeves  and  red 
braces  as  I  had  first  seen  him.  As  I  turned 
to  go  they  stopped  me. 


HERITAGE  105 

"  'Mr.  Malory,'  Amos  said,  'we'd  like  to 
ask  your  advice.  We're  right  moidered  about 
our  girl.  You've  seen  how  it  is  between  her 
and  young  Westmacott.  Now  we'll  not  have 
young  Westmacott  in  our  family  if  we  can 
help  it,  and  we're  wondering  whether  it 
would  be  best  to  forbid  him  the  place,  and 
forbid  Ruth  to  hold  any  further  truck  with 
him,  or  to  trust  her  good  sense  to  send  him 
about  his  business  in  the  end.' 

"I  reflected.  Then  I  considered  that  West- 
macott was  probably  more  attractive  present 
than  absent,  and  spoke. 

"  'I  hardly  like  to  interfere  in  what  isn't 
really  my  affair  at  all,  but  as  you've  asked 
me  I'll  say  that  if  Ruth  were  my  daughter 
I  should  forbid  him  the  farm.' 

"  'That  clinches  it,'  said  Amos,  bringing  his 
hand  down  on  the  table.  'We'll  have  the  girl 
in  and  tell  it  her  straight  away.  You've  voiced 
my  own  feelings,  sir,  and  I'm  grateful  to  you.' 

"Here  Mrs.  Pennistan  began  to  cry. 

'"My  poor  Ruth!  and  what  if  she's  fond 
of  the  boy?' 

"  'Better  for  her  to  shed  a  dozen  tears  for 
him  now  than  a  hundred  thousand  in  years 
to  come.  I'll  call  her  in.' 


106  HERITAGE 

"She  came,  wiping  her  hands  on  her  blue 
apron. 

"  'Father,  the  butter'll  spoil/ 

"  'Never  mind  the  butter.  Now  listen  here, 
my  girl,  we've  been  talking  about  you,  your 
mother  and  I,  and  we've  decided  that  you 
and  Rawdon  have  seen  more  of  each  other 
than  is  good  for  you.  So  I'm  going  to  tell 
him  that  he's  to  keep  over  at  his  own  place 
in  the  future,  and  I  expect  you  to  keep  over 
here;  that  is,  I  won't  have  you  slipping  out 
and  meeting  that  young  good-for-nothing 
when  the  fancy  takes  you.' 

"What  a  gentleman  he  is,  I  thought  to  my- 
self, to  have  kept  my  name  out  of  it. 

"I  looked  at  Ruth,  wondering  what  she 
would  do,  and  hoping,  yes,  hoping  that  she 
would  rebel. 

'Very  well,  dad,'  was  all  she  said,  and 
she  looked  perfectly  composed,  and  was  not 
even  twisting  her  apron  as  she  stood  there 
before  the  court  of  justice. 

"I  think  Amos  was  a  little  surprised,  a 
little  disappointed,  at  her  compliance. 

"'You  understand?'  he  said,  trying  to 
emphasise  the  point  which  he  had  already 


HERITAGE  107 

"  'I  understand,  dad,'  she  said,  still  in  that 
quiet  and  perfectly  respectful  voice. 

"  'There's  a  good  girl,'  said  Mrs.  Pen- 
nistan,  and  she  got  up  and  kissed  her 
daughter,  who  submitted  passively. 

'  'Now  perhaps  Mr.  Malory'll  lend  me  a 
hand  with  the  butter,  or  it'll  spoil,'  said  Ruth, 
looking  at  me,  and  I  followed  her  out  to  the 
dairy,  expecting,  I  must  confess,  that  she 
would  turn  upon  me  and  rend  me.  But  she 
remained  severely  practical  as  she  set  me  to 
my  task. 

"I  could  bear  it  no  longer. 

'  'Ruth,'  I  said,  'I  must  be  honest  with 
you,  even  though  it  makes  you  angry.  Your 
father  asked  my  advice  in  this  business,  and 
I  gave  it  him.' 

"  'You  shouldn't  stop,'  she  said,  'the  butter'U 
never  set  properly.' 

"I  returned  to  my  churn. 

" '  But,  Ruth,  do  you  understand  what 
I  say?  I  am  partly  responsible  for  West- 
macott's  dismissal.' 

"Her  hand  and  arm  continued  their  rotary 
movement,  but  she  turned  her  large  eyes  upon 
me. 


108  HERITAGE 

'Why?'  she  inquired,  with  disconcerting 
simplicity. 

"'I  don't  like  him,'  I  muttered.  'How 
could  I  live  here,  knowing  you  married  to  a 
man  I  dislike  and  mistrust?' 

"To  my  surprise  she  said  no  more,  but 
bent  to  her  work,  and  'I  saw  a  great  blush  like 
a  wave  creep  slowly  over  her  half  hidden  face 
and  down  where  her  unfastened  dress  revealed 
her  throat. 

*  'Ruth,'  I  said  humbly,  'are  you  angry 
with  me?' 

"I  heard  a  'No,'  that  glided  out  with  her 
breath. 

'  'I  hope  you  don't  care  for  him  too  much? 
He  isn't  worthy  of  you.' 

'  'Can  you  lift  that  pail  for  me?'  she  said, 
pointing,  and  I  lifted  the  heavy  pail,  and 
poured  it  as  she  directed  into  the  separator, 
a  smooth  Niagara  of  milk. 

"About  three  days  later  my  thatcher  un- 
bosomed himself  to  me.  Westmacott  had 
disappeared  from  the  farm,  and  of  course 
every  one  for  five  miles  round  knew  that 
Pennistan  had  turned  him  out.  I  don't 
know  how  they  knew  it,  but  country  people 


HERITAGE  109 

seem  to  know  things  like  a  swallow  knows  its 
way  to  Egypt. 

"I  recommended  my  thateher  to  speak 
privately  to  Amos  first,  which  he  did,  and 
received  that  good  man's  sanction  and  ap- 
proval. 

"Then  Ruth  came  to  me,  or,  rather,  I  met 
her  with  the  pig  pail  in  her  hand,  and  she 
stopped  me.  A  distant  reaper  was  singing 
on  its  way  somewhere  in  the  summer  evening. 

"  Tve  seen  Leslie  Dymock,'  she  said 
abruptly.  'Is  it  true  that  you  .  .  . ' 

'  'I  didn't  discourage  him,'  I  said  as  she 
paused. 

"Again  she  put  to  me  that  disconcerting 
question,  'Why?' 

"  'He's  a  good  fellow,'  I  answered  warmly. 
'He  cares  for  you.  He  didn't  tell  me.  I 
guessed.' 

"  'How?'  she  asked. 

"'Heavens!'  I  cried,  taking  the  pig  pail 
angrily  from  her,  'you  positively  rout  me 
with  your  direct  questions.  Why?  How?  As 
if  one's  actions  could  hold  in  a  single  why  or 
how.  Don't  you  know  that  the  stars  of  the 
Milky  Way  are  as  nothing  compared  with  the 
complexity  of  men's  motives?' 


110  HERITAGE 

"She  gazed  at  me,  and  as  I  looked  into 
her  eyes  I  felt  that  I  had  been  a  fool,  and 
that  with  certain  human  beings  a  single 
motive  could  sail  serenely  like  a  rising 
planet  in  the  evening  sky.  Then  I  re- 
membered I  was  still  holding  the  pail.  I  set 
it  down. 

"  'I  am  sorry,'  I  said  more  gently,  *I 
ought  not  to  answer  you  like  that.  I  like, 
I  respect,  and  I  trust  Leslie  Dymock,  and 
for  that  reason  I  should  at  least  be  glad  to 
see  you  consider  his  claim.  As  for  my  guess- 
ing, I  had  only  to  look  at  his  face  when  you 


came.' 


'  'I  see,'  she  said  slowly.  She  bent  to 
recover  her  pail.  'I  must  be  getting  on  to 
the  pigs,'  and  indeed  those  impatient  animals 
were  shrieking  discordantly  from  the  stye. 

"Next  day,"  said  Malory  as  though  in 
parenthesis,  and  with  a  reminiscent  smile  on 
his  face,  "I  remember  that  a  butcher  came  to 
buy  the  pigs.  He  fastened  a  big  hook  on  to 
the  beams  of  the  ceiling  in  a  little,  dark, 
disused  cottage,  and  we  drove  the  pigs,  three 
of  them,  into  the  cottage  for  the  purpose  of 
weighing  them  alive,  and  Ruth  looked  on 
from  outside,  through  the  much  cobwebbed 


HERITAGE  111 

window.  It  was  a  scene  both  farcical  and 
Flemish.  All  the  farm  dogs  gathered  round 
barking;  the  pigs,  who  were  terrified  into 
panic,  made  an  uproar  such  as  you  cannot 
imagine  if  you  have  never  heard  a  pig  scream- 
ing. The  butcher  and  his  mate  drove  them 
into  sacks,  head  first,  and  as  he  got  the  snout 
neatly  into  one  corner  of  the  sack,  and  the 
feet  into  as  many  corners  as  were  left  to 
accommodate  them,  the  sack  took  on  the  exact 
semblance  of  a  pig  dragging  itself  Svith 
restraint  and  difficulty  along  the  ground. 
One  after  the  other  they  were  hoisted  into 
the  air  and  suspended  yelling  from  the  hook. 
I  went  out  to  see  whether  Ruth  was  scared 
by  the  noise.  She  was  not.  She  was  laugh- 
ing as  I  had  never  seen  her  laugh  before,  her 
hands  pressed  to  her  hips,  tears  in  her  eyes, 
her  white  teeth  gleaming  in  the  shadows.  I 
was  interested,  because  I  thought  I  under- 
stood the  inevitable  introduction  of  farcical 
interludes  into  mediaeval  drama.  Now  I 
think  I  understand  better,  that  Ruth,  who 
entirely  lacked  a  sense  of  the  humorous  in 
life,  was  rich  in  the  truly  Latin  sense  of 
farce.  I  practised  on  her  on  several  occasions 
after  that,  and  never  failed  to  draw  the  laugh 


112  HERITAGE 

I  expected.  The  physical  imposition  of  the 
automatic  was  unvarying  in  its  results.  And 
she  had  no  feminine  sentimentality  about  the 
sufferings  of  the  pigs — not  she.  She  rather 
liked  to  see  animals  baited." 

Yes,  my  friend,  thought  I  as  he  paused, 
and  I  understand  you  even  better  than  you 
profess  to  have  understood  the  girl.  You 
have  no  spark  of  real  humour  in  you. 

Just  as  Malory  reached  this  point  in  his 
story,  I  was  obliged  to  go  away  to  Turin  for 
a  couple  of  days,  but  my  mind  ran  more  on 
the  Weald  of  Kent  than  on  my  own  affairs: 
I  felt  that  the  summer  days  were  slipping  by, 
that  the  corn  would  be  cut  and  set  up  in 
stocks,  if  not  already  carted,  by  the  time  I 
got  back,  and  that  Leslie  Dymock  might 
have  made  such  good  use  of  his  time  as  to 
be  actually  betrothed.  As  soon  as  I  reached 
Sampiero  and  had  changed  from  my  travel- 
ling decency  into  my  habitual  flannels,  I 
rushed  out  to  find  Malory,  who  was  sitting 
with  his  pipe  in  his  mouth  beside  the  stream 
fishing. 

He  greeted  me,  "I've  caught  two  trout." 

"No?  We'll  have  them  for  breakfast,"  and 
I  threw  myself  on  the  ground  beside  him, 


HERITAGE  113 

and  watched  his  lazy  line  rocking  on  the 
water. 

"What  it  is  to  be  a  fisherman!"  Malory 
said.  "To  wade  out  into  a  great,  broad  river, 
and  stand  there  isolated  from  men,  with  the 
water  swirling  round  your  knees,  and  cry- 
ing 'Come!  come  away  from  the  staid  and 
stupid  land  out  to  the  sea,  and  exchange  the 
shackles  of  life  for  the  liberty  of  death.' 
When  the  voice  of  the  water  has  become  too 
insistent,  I  have  all  but  bent  my  knees  ifhd 
given  myself  up  to  the  rhythm  of  the  stream. 
Fishing,  like  nothing  else,  begets  serenity  of 
spirit.  Serenity  of  spirit,"  he  repeated,  "  and 
turbulence  of  action — that  should  make  up 
the  sum  of  man's  life." 

He  cast  his  fly  and  began  to  murmur  some 
lines  over  to  himself, — 

"Give  me  a  spirit  that  on  life's  rough  sea 
Loves  t'  have  his  sails  filled  with  a  lusty  wind, 
Even  till  his  sail-yards  tremble,  his  masts  crack, 
And  his  rapt  ship  run  on  her  side  so  low 
That  she  drinks  water,  and  her  keel  ploughs  air. 
There  is  no  danger  to  a  man  that  knows 
What  life  and  death  is.    ..." 

"The  Elizabethans  counted  life  well  lost  in 


114  HERITAGE 

an  adventurous  cause.  I  believe  in  their  sense 
of  duty,  but  I  believe  still  more  in  their 
sense  of  adventure.  And  they  share  with  the 
French  the  love  of  panache.  Prudence  is  a 
hateful  virtue.  I  believe  the  hatefulness  of 
prudence  is  the  chief  cause  of  the  unpopu- 
larity of  Jews." 

He  looked  apologetically  at  me  to  see  what 
I  made  of  his  dogmatic  excursion. 

"I  wonder  whether  you  want  me  to  go  on 
with  my  story?  You  do!  Well.  Amos  Pen- 
nistan  said  to  me  after  a  month  had  passed, 
'I've  enough  of  Ruth's  niwering-novv^ring.' 

"I  thought  that,"  said  Malory,  "an  excellent 
expression — a  moral  onomatopoeia.  Amos 
continued,  'I'm  going  to  say  to  her,  "One 
thing  or  the  other;  either  you  take  Leslie 
Dymock,  or  you  leave  him."  'Grand!'  I 
said,  'I  like  your  directness,  straight  to  the 
point,  like  a  pin  to  a  magnet.  After  all, 
over-much  subtlety  has  weakened  modern  life 
and  modern  art  alike.  And  what  if  she  replies 
that  she  will  leave  him?' 

"I  thought  his  answer  a  fine  simple 
one,  patriarchal  in  its  pride:  'There's  many 
young  men  besides  Leslie  Dymock  that  would 
be  glad  to  marry  my  daughter;  'tis  not  every 


HERITAGE  115 

girl  has  such  a  dower  of  looks  as  my  girl,  and 
a  dower  of  this  world's  goods  thrown  along.' 
Flocks  and  herds,  she-goats  and  he-goats,  I 
suppose  he  would  have  said,  had  he  lived  in 
Israel  two  thousand  years  ago. 

"So  this  ultimatum  was  presented  to  Ruth, 
who  asked  for  a  month  in  which  to  make  up 
her  mind.  I  saw  her  going  about  her  work 
as  usual,  but  I  supposed  that  thoughts  more 
sacred,  more  speculative,  than  her  ordinary 
thoughts  of  daily  labour,  were  coming  and 
going  in  her  brain,  hopping,  and  occasionally 
twittering,  like  little  birds  in  a  coppice.  I 
did  not  speak  to  her  much  at  this  time.  I 
pictured  her  as  a  nun  during  her  novitiate,  or 
as  a  young  man  in  vigil  beside  his  unused 
armour,  or  as  the  condemned  criminal  in  his 
cell,  because  all  three  figures  share  alike  a 
quantity  of  aloofness  from  the  world.  I  only 
wished  that  Heaven  might  grant  me  a  second 
Daphnis  and  Chloe  for  my  depopulated 
Arcady,  and  I  asked  no  greater  happiness 
than  to  see  Ruth  and  Leslie  tangled  together 
in  the  meshes  of  love. 

"September  was  merging  into  October,  and 
again  the  orchards  on  the  slope  of  the  hill 
were  loaded  with  fruit,  the  bushel  baskets 


116  HERITAGE 

stood  on  the  ground,  and  the  tall  ladders 
reared  themselves  into  the  branches.  We 
were  all  fruit-pickers  for  the  time  being.  Of 
the  apples,  only  the  very  early  kinds  were  ripe 
for  market,  and  of  this  I  was  glad,  for  I 
enjoyed  the  jewelled  orchard,  red,  green,  and 
russet,  and  yellow,  too,  where  the  quince-trees 
stood  with  their  roots  under  the  little  brook, 
but  the  plums  were  ready,  and  the  village 
boys  swarmed  into  the  trees  to  pick  such 
fruit  as  their  hands  could  reach,  and  to  shake 
the  remainder  to  the  ground.  We,  below, 
stood  clear  while  a  shower  of  plums  bounced 
and  tumbled  into  the  grass,  then  we  filled 
our  baskets  with  gold  and  purple,  returning 
homewards  in  the  evening  laden  like  the  spies 
from  the  Promised  Land.  Amos  stood,  nobly 
apostolic,  his  great  beard  spread  like  a  breast- 
plate over  his  chest,  among  the  glowing  plun- 
der. I  was  reminded  of  my  Greek  trader, 
and  of  the  Tuscan  vineyards;  and  the  Eng- 
lish country  and  the  southern  plenty  were 
again  strangely  mingled. 

"Towards  the  end  of  the  month,  consider- 
ing that  if  her  mind  had  not  yet  sailed  into 
the  sea  of  placidity  I  so  desired  it  to  attain, 
it  would  never  do  so,  I  decided  to  sound 


HERITAGE  117 

Ruth  upon  her  decision.  You  see,  she  inter- 
ested me,  disappointed  as  I  was  in  her,  and 
I  had  nothing  else  to  think  about  at  the  time 
save  these,  to  you  no  doubt  tame,  love  affairs 
of  my  country  friends.  I  had  a  good  deal  of 
difficulty  in  coaxing  her  into  a  sufficiently 
emotional  frame  of  mind;  as  fast  as  I  threw 
the  ballast  out  of  our  conversational  balloon, 
she  threw  in  the  sand-bags  from  the  other 
side.  My  speech  was  all  of  the  lover's 
Heaven,  hers  of  the  farm-labourer's  earth. 
She  was  curiously  on  the  defensive;  I  could 
not  understand  her.  I  was  certain  that  her 
matter-of-factness  was,  that  evening,  delib- 
erate. She  was  full  of  restraint,  and  yet, 
a  feverishness,  an  expectancy  clung  about 
her,  which  I  could  not  then  explain,  but 
which  I  think  was  fully  explained  by  later 
events. 

"We  got  off  at  last,  we  went  soaring  up 
into  the  sky;  it  was  my  doing,  for  I  had 
uttered  the  wildest  words  to  get  her  to  follow 
me.  I  had  talked  of  marriage ;  Heaven  knows 
what  I  said.  I  told  her  that  love  was  passion 
and  friendship — passion  in  the  secret  night, 
but  comradeship  in  the  open  places  under  the 
sun,  and  that  whereas  passion  was  the  drunk- 


118  HERITAGE 

enness  of  love,  friendship  was  its  food  and 
clear  water  and  warmth,  and  bodily  health 
and  vigour.  I  told  her  tha£  children  were 
to  their  begetters  what  flowers  are  to  the 
gardener:  little  expanding  things  with  danc- 
ing butterflies,  sensitive,  responsive,  satisfy- 
ing; the  crown  of  life,  the  assurance  of  the 
future,  the  rhyme  of  the  poem.  I  told  her 
that  in  love  alone  can  the  poignancy  of  joy 
equal  the  poignancy  of  sorrow.  I  told  her 
of  that  minority  that  finds  its  interest  in 
continual  change,  and  of  that  majority  which 
rests  on  a  deep  content,  and  a  great  many 
other  things  which  I  do  not  believe,  but  which 
I  should  wish  to  believe,  and  which  I  should 
wish  all  women  to  believe.  I  told  her  all 
that  I  had  never  told  a  human  being  before, 
all  that  I  had,  perhaps,  checked  my  tongue 
from  uttering  once  or  twice  in  my  life,  be- 
cause I  knew  myself  to  be  an  inconstant  man. 
I  made  love  by  quadruple  proxy,  not  as 
myself  to  Ruth  Pennistan,  or  as  myself  in 
Leslie  Dymock's  name  to  Ruth  Pennistan, 
or  as  myself  to  any  named  or  unnamed  woman, 
but  as  any  man  to  any  woman,  and  I  enjoyed 
it,  because  sincerity  always  carries  with  it  a 
certain  degree  of  pain,  but  pure  rhetoric 


HERITAGE  119 

carries  the  pure  enjoyment  of  the  creative 
artist." 

I  disliked  Malory's  cynicism,  and  I  should 
have  disliked  it  still  more  had  I  not  suspected 
that  he  was  not  entirely  speaking  the  truth. 
I  was  also  conscious  of  boiling  rage  against 
the  man  for  being  such  a  fool. 

"When  I  had  finished,"  he  went  on,  "she 
was  trembling  like  a  pool  stirred  by  the  wind. 

"  'You  think  like  that,'  she  said,  'I  never 
heard  any  one  talk  like  that  before.' 

"Then  I  told  her  a  great  deal  more,  about 
her  Spanish  heritage  and  that  disturbing 
blood  in  her  veins,  and  about  Spain,  of  which 
she  knew  next  to  nothing:  that  southern 
Spain  was  soft  and  the  air  full  of  orange- 
blossom,  but  that  the  north  was  fierce  and 
arid,  and  peopled  by  men  who  in  their  dignity 
and  reserve  had  more  in  common  with  the 
English  than  with  the  Latin  races  to  whom 
they  belonged;  that  as  their  country  had  not 
the  kindliness  of  the  English  country,  so  they 
themselves  lacked  the  kindly  English  humour, 
which  mocks  and  smiles  and,  above  all,  pities; 
and  that  their  temper  is  not  swift,  but  slow 
like  the  English  temper,  but,  when  roused, 
ruthless  and  as  little  to  be  checked  as  a  fall 


120  HERITAGE 

of  water.  I  think  that  for  the  first  time  she 
guessed  at  a  world  beyond  England,  a  world 
inhabited  by  real  men.  Before  that,  Spain  and 
all  Europe  had  been  as  remote  as  the  stars." 

Malory  told  her  all  this,  and  then,  when 
they  were  fairly  flying  through  the  air — I 
imagined  them  as  the  North  Wind  and  the 
little  girl  in  the  fairy-story:  hair  streaming, 
garments  streaming,  hand  pulling  hand — he 
judged  the  moment  opportune  to  return  to 
Leslie  Dymock.  I  fancy  that  the  crash  to 
earth  again  must  have  knocked  all  conscious- 
ness from  the  girl  for  a  considerable  interval. 
During  this  interval  Malory  dilated  on  the 
admirableness  of  the  young  man,  his  estima- 
ble qualities,  and  his  worldly  prospects.  I 
could  understand  his  scheme.  He  had 
planned  to  fill  her  with  electricity,  then  to 
switch  her  suddenly  off,  sparkling  and  thrill- 
ing, on  to  Leslie  Dymock.  He  had,  I  sup- 
pose, assumed  that  a  certain  sympathy  had 
already  inclined  her  native  tenderness  towards 
Leslie  Dymock.  The  scheme  was  an  excellent 
one  in  all  but  one  particular:  that  his  initial 
premise  was  radically  false. 

After  the  interval  of  her  unconsciousness, 
she  returned  with  slowly  opening  eyes  to  what 


HERITAGE  121 

he  was  saying.  God  knows  what  she  had 
expected  the  outcome  of  their  wild  journey  to 
be.  Malory  only  told  me  that  with  parted 
lips  and  eyes  in  which  all  the  mysteries  of 
awakened  adolescence  were  stirring,  she  laid 
her  hand,  trembling,  on  his  hand  and  said, — 

"What  do  you  mean?  why  do  you  speak  to 
me  like  .  .  .  like  this,  and  then  talk  to  me 
again  about  Leslie  Dymock?" 

He  asked  her  whether  she  could  not  find 
her  happiness  with  Leslie  Dymock  and  realise 
in  her  life  with  him  all  the  pictures  whose 
colours  he,  Malory,  had  painted  for  her.  And 
she  answered  so  bitterly  and  so  scornfully 
that  he  charged  her  with  having  her  heart  still 
fixed  on  Rawdon  Westmacott. 

"Still  fixed!"  she  cried,  emphasising  the 
first  word,  "and  how  could  that  be  still 
fixed  which  never  was  fixed  at  all?" 

He  was  baffled;  he  thought  her  an  unnat- 
ural creature  to  be  still  heart-whole  when 
her  youth,  her  advantages,  and  that  depth 
which,  in  spite  of  her  tameness,  her  reserve, 
and  his  own  protestations  of  her  lack  of  pas- 
sion— protestations  which  I  suspect  he  con- 
tinued to  make  for  the  strengthening  of  his  own 
unsure  belief — he  instinctively  divined,  should 


122  HERITAGE 

have  created  a  tumult  in  her  soul.  It  was 
to  him  unthinkable  that  such  hammer-strokes 
as  Nature,  Westmacott,  and  Dymock  had 
conjointly  delivered  on  the  walls  of  her  heart, 
should  have  failed  to  open  a  breach.  Such 
breaches,  once  opened,  are  hard  to  close 
against  a  determined  invader.  He  urged  her 
to  confide  in  him,  he  told  her  that  his  whole 
delight  lay  in  the  problems  of  humanity,  that 
metaphysics  and  psychology  were  to  his  mind 
as  sea-air  to  his  nostrils.  She  only  looked 
at  him,  and  I  think  it  was  probably  fortunate 
for  his  vanity  that  he  could  not  read  what  a 
fool  she  thought  him.  I  suppose  that  every 
man  must  appear  to  a  woman  half  a  genius 
and  half  a  fool.  Much  as  a  grown  person 
must  appear  to  the  infinitely  simpler  and 
infinitely  more  complex  mind  of  a  child. 

He  urged  her  confidence,  therefore,  seeing 
that  she  remained  silent,  although  her  lips 
were  still  parted,  her  hand  still  lying  on  his 
hand,  and  the  expectation  still  living  in  her 
eyes,  that  had  not  as  yet  remembered  to 
follow  the  lead  of  her  mind.  They  were  the 
mirrors  of  her  instinct,  and  her  instinct  was 
at  variance  with  her  reason.  He  had  come 
down  to  the  practical  business  of  his  mission, 


HERITAGE  123 

while  she  lived  still  in  the  enchanted  moments 
of  their  flight  into  a  realm  to  her  unknown. 
If  her  ears  received  his  emphatic  words,  her 
brain  remained  insensible  to  them.  He  de- 
tached his  hand  from  hers,  to  lay  it  on  her 
shoulder  and  to  shake  her  slightly. 

"Ruth,  do  you  hear  what  I  am  saying  to 
you?" 

Her  widened  eyes  contracted  for  an  instant, 
as  with  pain,  and  turning  them  on  him  she 
prepared  an  expression  of  intelligent  com- 
prehension to  greet  his  next  sentence. 

"I  am  asking  you  to  trust  me  as  a  friend. 
It's  lonely  to  be  left  alone  witfi  a  decision. 
If  you  are  angry  with  me  for  interfering,  tell 
me  to  go  away,  and  I  will  go.  But  so  long 
as  I  may  talk  to  you,  I  want  to  keep  my 
finger  on  the  pulse  of  your  affairs,  where  it 
has  been,  let  me  remind  you,  ever  since  I 
set  foot  in  your  father's  house.  I  want  to 
see  you  happy  in  your  home,  and  to  know 
that  I  accompanied  you  at  any  rate  to  the 
threshold." 

She  broke  from  him,  he  told  me,  with  a 
cry;  ran  from  him,  and  never  reappeared  that 
evening.  On  the  following  day  she  accepted 
Leslie  Dymock. 


"THERE  was  a  great  deal  of  rejoicing," 
Malory  continued,  "in  the  Pennistan  house- 
hold over  the  engagement.  Nancy  and  her 
husband  came  for  a  three  days'  visit.  I  was 
glad  to  see  my  Daphnis  and  Chloe  again,  and 
to  discover  that  all  the  sweets  of  marriage 
which  I  had  described  to  Ruth  were  living 
realities  in  these  two.  They  seemed  insatiable 
for  each  other's  presence.  Their  attitude 
towards  Ruth  and  Leslie  was  parental;  nay, 
grandf atherly ;  nay,  ancestral!  Experience 
and  patronage  transpired  through  the 'cracks 
of  their  benison.  Ruth  was  annoyed,  but  I 
was  greatly  amused. 

"It  had  been  arranged  that  the  wedding 
should  take  place  almost  immediately.  Why 
delay?  I  am  sure  that  Leslie  Dymock  was 
hungering  to  get  his  wife  away  to  his  own 
home.  And  Ruth?  She  accepted  every  hap- 
pening with  calm,  avoided  me — I  supposed 
that  she  was  shy,  and  left  her  to  herself — was 
gentle  and  affectionate  to  Leslie,  took  a  suit- 

124 


HERITAGE  125 

able  interest  in  the  preparations  of  her  wed- 
ding. I  was,  on  the  whole,  satisfied.  I  did 
not  believe  that  she  was  much  in  love  with 
Leslie  Dymock,  in  fact  I  was  inclined  to 
think  that  she  regretted  her  handsome  black- 
guard, but  I  believed  that  her  evident  fond- 
ness for  Dymock  would  develop  with  their 
intimacy,  and  that  the  bud  would  presently 
break  out  into  the  full-blown  rose. 

"As  for  him,  he  would  not  have  exchanged 
his  present  position  with  an  archangel. 

"I  asked  Amos  what  had  become  of  West- 
macott. 

6  'Over  at  his  place,  like  a  wild  beast  in 
a  cave,'  he  replied  with  a  grin. 

'  'Is  he  coming  to  the  wedding?' 

'  'Oh,  ay,  if  he  chooses.' 

"I  now  became  concerned  for  my  own 
future.  Life  at  the  Pennistans'  without  Ruth 
would,  I  foresaw,  be  less  agreeable  although 
not  actually  unbearable.  She  and  I  had 
worked  together  in  a  harmony  I  could 
scarcely  hope  to  reproduce  with  the  hired 
girl  who  was  to  take  her  place,  for  you  must 
realise  that  although  I  have  only  reported  to 
you  our  conversations  on  the  more  human 
subjects  of  life,  our  everyday  existence  had 


126  HERITAGE 

been  made  up  of  hours  of  happy  work  and 
mutual  interest.  I  seriously  thought  of  leav- 
ing, and  said  as  much  to  Dymock. 

"Some  days  afterwards  that  good  young 
man  came  to  me. 

'  'I've  been  thinking,'  he  said,  'of  your 
leaving  and  of  your  not  liking,  as  you  told 
me,  to  go  away  from  the  Weald  till  after  next 
spring.  Now  I've  a  proposal  to  make  to 
you,'  and  he  told  me  of  a  cottage  near  his 
own  place,  with  five  acres,  enough  to  support 
hens,  pigs,  and  a  cow,  whose  tenant  had 
recently  died.  He  suggested  to  me  that  I 
should  rent  this  small  holding  for  a  year. 
'  And  you  can  walk  over  o'  nights,  and  have 
a  bit  of  supper  with  us,'  he  added  hospit- 
ably. 

"The  matter  was  adjusted,  and  I  told  Ruth 
with  joy  that  I  should  be  within  half  a  mile 
of  her  in  her  new  life.  I  was  grieved  to  see 
that  she  first  looked  taken  aback,  then  dis- 
mayed, then  irritated.  I  say  that  I  was 
grieved,  but  presently  I  found  occasion  to  be 
glad,  for  I  reflected  that  if  she  thus  resented 
the  disturbance  of  her  solitude  with  her  hus- 
band it  could  only  be  on  account  of  her 
growing  fondness  for  him,  and  as  I  could 


HERITAGE  127 

not  now  revoke  my  tenancy  I  resolved  that  I 
would  at  least  be  a  discreet  neighbour. 

"How  smugly  satisfied  we  all  were  at  that 
time!  I  feel  ashamed  for  myself  and  for  the 
others  when  I  think  of  it. 

"The  first  indication  I  had  that  anything 
was  wrong  came  about  a  week  before  Ruth's 
wedding,  when,  walking  down  a  lane  near 
Pennistans'  driving  home  the  cattle,  I  passed 
Rawdon  Westmacott.  We  were  by  then  near 
November,  so  the  evening  was  dark,  and  I 
was  not  sure  of  the  man's  identity  until  we 
had  actually  crossed.  Then  I  saw  his  sharp 
face,  and  recognised  the  subtly  Oriental  lilt 
of  his  walk.  He  looked  angry  when  he  saw 
that  I  was  myself,  and  not  one  of  the  herds- 
men he  no  doubt  expected.  I  wondered  what 
the  fellow  was  doing  on  Pennistan's  land. 

"The  weather  was  bitterly  cold,  all  the 
leaves  were  gone  from  the  trees,  and  the  fat, 
wealthy  Weald  was  turned  to  a  scarecrow 
presentment  of  itself.  Instead  of  the  blue 
sky  and  great  white  clouds  like  the  Lord 
Mayor's  horses,  a  hard  sulphur  sky  greeted 
me  in  the  early  mornings,  with  streaks  of  iron 
gray  cloud  on  the  horizon,  and  a  lowering 
red  disc  of  sun.  Underfoot  the  ground  was 


128  HERITAGE 

frosty,  and  the  frozen  mud  stood  up  in  little 
sharp  ridges.  As  it  thawed  during  the  day 
the  clay  resumed  its  slimy  dominion,  and  I 
had  to  exchange  my  shoes  for  boots,  as  the 
clay  pulled  my  shoes  off  my  heels. 

"It  was  now  two  days  before  the  wedding, 
and  I  sought  out  Ruth  to  make  her  my  hum- 
ble present.  Never  mind  what  it  was.  I  had 
got  her  an  extra  present,  which,  I  told  her, 
was  my  real  offering,  and  I  gave  her  the  case, 
and  she  opened  it  on  a  pair  of  big  brass  ear- 
rings. She  got  very  white. 

4 You  can  wear  them  now,'  I  said,  'Les- 
lie at  least  isn't  jealous  of  me,  and  here  is  the 
rest,'  and  I  gave  her  the  coloured  scarf. 

"She  took  it  from  my  hand,  never  thanking 
me  or  saying  a  word,  but  looking  at  me 
steadily,  and  put  the  scarf  round  her  throat. 

"I  added  my  good  wishes;  Heaven  knows 
they  were  sincere. 

"  'Tell  me  you're  happy,  Ruth,  and  I 
shall  be  filled  with  gladness.' 

"  'I'm  happy,'  she  said  dully. 

"  'And  you're  fond  of  Leslie?' 

"  'Yes,'  she  said  with  such  sudden  em- 
phasis that  I  was  startled,  'all  that  you  said 
about  him  is  true;  he  is  kind  and  valiant,  a 


HERITAGE  129 

man  with  whom  any  woman  should  be  happy. 
I  am  glad  that  I  have  learnt  how  good  he  is. 
I  am  fonder  of  him  than  of  my  brothers.' 

"I  thought  that  a  strange  comparison,  but 
not  wholly  a  bad  one. 

"I  tried  to  be  hearty. 

6  'I  am  so  pleased,  Ruth,  and  my  vanity 
is  gratified,  too,  for  I  almost  think  you  might 
have  passed  him  by  but  for  me.' 

'Yes,'    she    said,    'yes,    I    would    have 
passed  him  by.' 

"'By  God,  Ruth!'  I  burst  out,  'he  is  a 
lucky  fellow.  Do  you  know  that  you  are  a 
very  beautiful  woman?' 

"She  swayed  as  though  she  were  dizzy  for 
a  moment. 

'  'I  must  go,'  she  said  then,  'and  I 
haven't  said  thank  you,  but  I  do  thank  you.' 

"She  paused. 

*'  'You  have  taught  me  a  great  deal.  I 
have  learnt  from  you  what  men  like  Leslie 
Dymock  have  a  right  to  expect  from  life.' 

'  'And  you  will  give  it  him?'  I  asked. 

"She  bowed  her  head. 
'I  will  try.' 

"Now  I  thought  that  a  very  satisfactory 
conversation,  and  I  went  about  my  work,  for 


130  HERITAGE 

beasts  must  be  fed  and  housed,  weddings  or 
no  weddings,  with  a  singing  heart  that  day. 
If,  somewhere,  a  tiny  worm  of  jealousy 
crawled  about  on  the  floor-mud  of  my  being, 
I  think  I  bottled  it  very  successfully  into  a 
corner.  I  was  not  jealous  of  Dymock  on 
account  of  Ruth;  no,  not  exactly;  but  jealous 
only  as  one  must  be  jealous  of  two  young 
happy  things  when  one  remembers  that,  much 
as  one  values  one's  independence,  one  is  not 
the  vital  life-spark  of  any  other  human  being 
on  this  earth.  There  must  be  moments  when 
the  most  liberty-loving  among  us  envy  the 
yoke  they  fly  from. 

"I  clapped  a  cow  on  her  ungainly  shallow 
flanks  as  I  tossed  up  her  bedding,  and  said 
to  her,  'You  and  I,  old  friend,  must  stick 
together,  for  if  man  can't  have  his  fellow- 
creatures  to  love  he  must  return  to  the 
beasts.'  She  turned  her  glaucous  eye  on  me 
as  she  munched  her  supper.  Then  I  heard 
voices  in  the  shed. 

"'Rawdon!  if  dad  sees  you  .  .  .  ' 

"And  Westmacott's  hoarse  voice. 

"  Til  chance  that,  but,  by  hell,  Ruth,  you 
shall  listen  to  me.  They  think  you're  going 
to  marry  that  lout,  but  as  I'm  a  living  man 


HERITAGE  131 

you  shan't.  I'll  murder  him  first.  I  swear 
before  God  that  if  you  become  that  man's  wife 
I'll  make  you  his  widow.' 

"I  stood  petrified,  wondering  what  I  should 
do.  It  was  night,  and  pitch  dark  inside  the 
shed,  but  as  I  looked  over  the  back  of  my  cow 
down  the  line  of  stalls  in  which  the  slow  cat- 
tle were  lazily  ruminating,  I  saw  two  indis- 
tinct figures  and,  beyond  them,  the  open 
door,  the  night  sky,  and  an  angry  moon, 
the  yellow  Hunter's  moon,  rising  behind  the 
trees. 

"Ruth  spoke  again. 

'  'Rawdon,  don't  talk  too  loud.  I'll  stay, 
yes,  I'll  stay  with  you;  only  dad'll  kill  you  if 
he  finds  you  here.' 

*  'I've  been  up  every  night  to  find  you,' 
Westmacott  said  in  a  lower  voice.  'I've  hung 
about  hoping  you'd  come  out.  Ruth,  you 
don't  know.  I'm  mad  for  you.  .  .  .  You're 
my  woman.  What  business  have  you  to  go 
with  bloodless  men?  You  come  with  me,  and 
I'll  give  you  all  you  lack.  I'll  be  good  to  you, 
too,  I  swear  I  will.  I'll  not  drink;  no,  on 
my  word,  it's  the  thought  of  you  that  drives 
me  to  it.  Ruth!' 

"He  put  out  his  arms  and  tried  to  seize 


132  HERITAGE 

her,  but  she  recoiled  and  stood  holding  on  to 
the  butt-end  of  a  stall. 

"  'Hands  off  me,  Rawdon.' 

"  'You're  very  particular/  he  sneered ;  and 
then,  changing  his  tone,  'Come,  child,  you're 
just  ridiculous.  I  know  you  better  than  that. 
Have  you  forgotten  the  day  we  drove  to  Ton- 
bridge  market?  you  wasn't  so  nice  then.' 

"  'I  disremember,'  she  said  stolidly,  but 
under  her  stolidity  I  think  she  was  shaken. 

"  'You  don't  disremember  at  all.  There's 
fire  in  you,  Ruth,  there's  blood ;  that's  why  I 
like  you.  You're  shamming  ladylike.  I've 
got  that  gent  with  his  accursed  notions  to 
thank,  I  suppose.' 

"This  reminded  me  with  a  start  of  my  own 
identity.  I  could  not  stay  eavesdropping,  so 
I  made  up  my  mind  and  stepped  out  into 
the  passage  between  the  stalls. 

"Westmacott  and  Ruth  cried  simulta- 
neously,— 

"'Who's  that?' 

'"Mr.  Malory!' 

"  'This  is  a  bad  hour  for  you,  sir,'  said 
Westmacott  to  me. 

"I  knew  that  I  must  not  quarrel  with  him. 

"  'I  am  sorry,'  I  said.     'I  had  no  inten- 


HERITAGE  133 

tion  of  spying  on  you  and  was  only  doing  my 
ordinary  work  in  here.  I  will  go  if  you,  Ruth, 
wish  me  to  go.' 

"  'No,'  said  Westmacott,  'go,  and  tell 
them  all  I'm  here?  Not  much.  You've  heard 
enough  now  to  know  I  want  Ruth.  You've 
always  known  it.  I've  always  wanted  her, 
and  I  mean  to  have  her.  Who  are  you,  you 
fine  gentleman,  that  you  should  stand  in  my 
way?  I  could  crush  your  windpipe  with  my 
finger  and  thumb.' ' 

I  pictured  that  grotesque  scene  in  that 
dark,  smelly  shed,  among  the  ruminating  cat- 
tle, and  those  two  antagonistic  men  with  the 
girl  between  them. 

"I  turned  to  Ruth,"  said  Malory,  "and 
asked  her  frigidly  what  she  wanted  me  to  do? 
Should  I  attack  the  fellow?  or  give  the  alarm? 
or  was  it  by  her  consent  that  he  was  there? 
Again  she  did  not  speak  and  he  answered  for 
her. 

"  'I'm  here  by  her  consent,  she's  had  a 
note  from  me,  and  she  answered  it,  and  here 
she  is.  Isn't  it  true?'  he  demanded  of  her. 

"  'It  is  quite  true,'  she  said,  speaking  to 
me. 

"I  was  hurt  and  disappointed. 


134  HERITAGE 

"  'Then  I  will  go,  as  it  appears  to  be  an 
assignation.' 

"  'No,'  said  Ruth,  'wait.  You  said  you 
had  had  your  finger  on  the  pulse  of  my  affairs 
ever  since  you  came  here,  and  now  you  must 
follow  them  out  to  the  end.  I  am  not  a  bit 
afraid  of  your  turning  me  away  from  the  path 
I've  chosen.' 

"Weak!  I  had  thought  her.  As  I  stood 
there  like  a  bereft  and  helpless  puppet  be- 
tween those  two  dark  figures,  I  felt  myself 
a  stranger  and  a  foreigner  to  them,  baffled 
by  the  remoteness  of  their  race.  They  were 
of  the  same  blood,  and  I  and  Leslie  Dymock 
were  of  a  different  breed,  tame,  contented, 
orderly,  incapable  of  abrupt  resolution. 
Weak!  I  had  thought  her.  Well,  and  so  she 
had  been,  indolently  weak,  but  now,  like 
many  weak  natures,  strong  under  the  in- 
fluence of  a  nature  stronger  than  her  own. 
So,  at  least,  I  read  her  new  determination, 
for  I  did  not  believe  in  a  well  of  strength 
sprung  suddenly  in  the  native  soil  of  her 
being.  I  perceived,  rather,  a  spring  gushing 
up  in  the  man,  and  pouring  its  torrent  irre- 
sistibly over  her  pleasant  valleys.  I  thought 
her  the  mouthpiece  of  his  thunder.  At  the 


HERITAGE  135 

same  time,  something  in  her  must  have  risen 
to  merge  and  marry  with  the  force  of  his 
resolve.  Who  knows  what  southern  blood, 
what  ancient  blood,  what  tribal  blood,  had 
stirred  in  her  from  slumber?  what  cry  of  the 
unknown,  \mseen  wild  had  drawn  her  towards 
a  mate  of  her  own  calibre?  An  absurd  joy 
rushed  up  in  me  at  the  thought.  I  flung  a 
dart  of  sympathy  to  Leslie  Dymock,  but  he, 
like  those  slow-chewing  cattle,  was  of  the 
patient,  long-suffering  sort  whose  fate  is 
always  to  be  cast  aside  and  sacrificed  to  the 
egoism  of  others.  I  forgot  my  homily  on 
marriage,  and  the  pictures  I  had  drawn  of 
Ruth  and  Dymock  in  their  happy  home  with 
their  quiverful  of  robust  and  flaxen  children. 
I  forgot  the  sinful  lusts  of  Rawdon  West- 
macott.  Yes,  I  lost  myself  wholly  in  the  joy 
of  the  mating  of  two  Bohemian  creatures,  and 
in  Ruth's  final  justification  of  herself. 

"  *I  want  you,'  continued  Ruth,  in  the 
same  even,  relentless  voice,  'to  stand  by  Les- 
lie whatever  may  come  to  him,  and  to  show 
him  that  he's  a  happier  man  for  losing 
me  .  .  .  ' 

"I  heard  Westmacott  in  the  darkness  give 
a  snarl  of  triumph. 


136  HERITAGE 

( You  're  determined,  then?'  I  said  to 
Ruth.  'You've  not  had  much  time  to  make 
up  your  mind,  or  wasted  many  words  over 
it,  since  I  surprised  you  here.' 

"'Time?'  she  said,  'words?  A  kettle's  a 
long  time  on  the  fire  before  it  boils  over.  I 
know  I'm  not  for  Leslie  Dymock,  I  know  it 
this  evening,  and  I've  known  it  a  long  while 
though  I  wouldn't  own  it.  I'm  going,  and  I 
want  to  be  forgotten  by  all  at  home.' 

"I  was  moved — by  her  homely  little  simile, 
and  by  the  anguish  in  her  voice  at  her  last 
sentence. 

'  'I  don't  dissuade  you,'  I  said.  'Dymock 
must  recover,  and  if  you  and  your  cousin 
love  one  another  .  .  .  ' 

"Westmacott  broke  in  bitterly, — 
c  'Say!    You    seem    to    have    missed    the 
point  .  .  .  ' 

"  'Rawdon!'  Ruth  spoke  with  a  passion  I, 
even  I,  had  not  foreseen.  'Rawdon,  I  for- 
bid you  to  say  another  word.' 

"He  grumbled  to  himself,  and  was  si- 
lent. 

"I  looked  at  her  during  the  pause  in  which 
she  waited  threateningly  for  signs  of  rebel- 
lion on  his  part,  and  I  found  in  her  face,  lit 


HERITAGE  137 

by  the  light  of  the  Hunter's  moon,  the  strang- 
est conflict  that  ever  I  saw  on  a  woman's  face 
before.  I  read  there  distress,  soul-shattering 
and  terrible,  but  I  also  read  a  determination 
which  I  knew  no  argument  could  weaken.  She 
was  unaware  of  my  scrutiny,  for  her  eyes 
were  bent  on  Westmacott.  Her  glance  was 
imperious;  she  knew  herself  to  be  the  coveted 
woman  for  whose  possession  he  must  fawn  and 
cringe;  she  knew  that  to-night  she  could  com- 
mand, if  for  ever  after  she  would  have  to 
obey.  I  read  this  knowledge,  and  I  read  her 
distress,  but  above  all  I  read  recklessness,  a 
wild  defiance,  which  alarmed  me. 

"  'I've  said  what  I  want  to  say,'  she  added. 
'You've  thought  me  a  meek  woman,  Mr. 
Malory,  you've  told  me  so,  and  so  I  am,  but 
I  seem  to  have  come  to  a  fence  across  my 
meekness,  and  I  know  neither  you  nor  any 
soul  on  earth  could  hold  me  back.  It's  never 
come  to  me  before  like  this.  Maybe  it'll  never 
come  again.  Maybe  you've  helped  me  to  it. 
There's  much  I  don't  know,  much  I  can't 
say  .  .  . '  her  ignorant  spirit  struggled  vainly 
for  speech.  I  was  silent,  for  I  knew  that  ele- 
mental forces  were  loose  like  monstrous  bats 
in  the  shed  which  contained  us. 


138  HERITAGE 

"  'Am  I  to  say  good-bye?'  I  asked. 

"She  swayed  over  towards  me,  as  though 
the  strength  of  her  body  were  infinitely  in- 
ferior to  the  strength  of  her  will.  She  put 
her  hands  on  my  shoulders  and  turned  me, 
so  that  the  light  of  the  yellow  moon  fell  on 
my  face. 

"She  said  then,— 
'  'Kiss  me  once  before  I  go.' 

"Rawdon  started  forward. 

"'No,  damn  him!' 

"She  laughed. 

( 'Don't  be  a  fool,  Rawdon,  you'll  have  me 
all  your  life.' 

"I  kissed  her  like  a  brother. 
'  'Bless  you,  my  dear,  may  you  be  happy. 
I  don't  know  if  you're  wise,  but  I  dare  say 
this  is  inevitable,  and  things  are  not  very  real 
to-night.' 

"There  was  indeed  something  absurdly 
theatrical  about  the  shed  full  of  uneasily 
shifting  cattle,  and  that  great  saffron  moon — 
shining,  too,  on  the  empty  arena  of 'Cadiz. 

"I  left  them  standing  in  the  shed,  and  got 
into  the  house  by  the  back  door;  with  method- 
ical precision  I  replaced  the  key  under  the 
mat  where,  country-like,  it  always  lived." 


HERITAGE  139 

I  felt  in  my  own  mind  that  much  remained 
which  had  not  been  satisfactorily  explained, 
but  when  Malory  resumed  after  a  moment's 
pause,  it  was  to  say, — 

"I  don't  know  that  there  is  very  much  more 
to  tell.  I  came  down  at  my  usual  hour  the 
next  morning,  and  found  no  signs  of  commo- 
tion about  the  farm.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I 
caught  sight  of  nobody  but  a  stray  labourer 
or  so  as  I  went  my  rounds.  I  moved  in  a  dull 
coma,  such  as  overtakes  us  after  a  crisis  of 
great  excitement;  a  dull  reaction,  such  as  fol- 
lows on  some  deep  stirring  of  our  emotions. 
Then  as  I  went  in  to  breakfast,  I  saw  Mrs. 
Pennistan  moving  in  the  kitchen  in  her  habit- 
ual placid  fashion,  and  Amos  came  in,  rubbing 
his  hands  on  a  coarse  towel,  strong  and  hearty 
in  the  crisp  morning.  The  old  grandmother 
was  already  in  her  place  by  the  fire,  her 
quavering  hands  busy  with  her  toast  and  her 
cup  of  coffee.  Everything  wore  the  look  I 
had  seen  on  it  a  hundred  times  before,  and  I 
wondered  whether  my  experience  had  not  all 
been  a  dream  of  my  sleep,  and  whether  Ruth 
would  not  presently  arrive  with  that  flush  I 
had  learnt  to  look  for  on  her  cheeks. 


140  HERITAGE 

"  ' Where's  Ruth?'  said  Mrs.  Pennistan  as 
we  sat  down. 

6  'She'll  be  in  presently,  likely,'  said  Amos, 
who  was  an  easy-going  man. 

"Her  mother  grumbled. 

"  'She  shouldn't  be  late  for  breakfast.' 

1  'Come,  come,  mother,'  said  Amos,  'don't 
be  hard  on  the  girl  on  her  wedding-eve,'  and 
as  he  winked  at  me  I  hid  my  face  in  my  vast 
cup. 

"Then  Leslie  Dymock  burst  in,  with  a  let- 
ter in  his  hand,  and  at  the  sight  of  his  face, 
and  of  that  suddenly  ominous  little  piece  of 
white  paper,  the  Pennistans  started  up  and 
tragedy  rushed  like  a  hurricane  into  the 
pleasant  room. 

"He  said,— 

"  'She's  gone,  read  her  letter,'  and  thrust 
it  into  her  father's  hand. 

"I  wish  I  could  reproduce  for  you  the  effect 
of  that  letter  which  Amos  read  aloud;  it  was 
quite  short,  and  said,  'Leslie.  I  am  going 
away  because  I  can't  do  you  the  injustice  of 
becoming  your  wife.  Tell  father  and  mother 
that  I  am  doing  this  because  I  think  it  is 
right.  I  am  not  trying  to  write  more  because 
it  is  all  so  difficult,  and  there  is  a  great  deal 


HERITAGE 

more  than  they  will  ever  know,  and  I  don't 
think  I  understand  everything  myself.  Try 
to  forgive  me.  I  am,  your  miserable  Ruth.' 
"I  cannot  tell  you,"  said  Malory,  who,  as 
I  could  see,  was  profoundly  shaken  by  the 
vividness  of  his  recollection,  "how  moved  I 
was  by  the  confusion  and  distress  of  those 
strangely  disquieting  words.  I  could  not 
reconcile  them  at  all  with  the  picture  I  had 
formed  of  two  kindred  natures  rushing  at 
last  together  in  a  pre-ordained  and  elemental 
union.  I  rose  to  get  away  from  the  family 
hubbub,  for  I  wanted  to  be  by  myself,  but 
on  the  way  I  stopped  and  looked  at  the  mice 
in  their  cage  among  the  red  geraniums.  They 
were  waltzing  frantically,  as  though  impelled 
by  a  sinister  influence  from  which  there  was 
no  escape." 


PART  II 


I  CONTINUED  to  feel,  as  I  have  said,  that 
there  was  much  in  Malory's  story  which 
remained  to  be  satisfactorily  explained,  for  I 
was  convinced  in  my  own  mind  that  his  inter- 
pretation of  Ruth  Pennistan's  flight,  plausi- 
ble as  it  was,  was  totally  misleading,  with 
the  dangerous  verisimilitude  of  a  theory 
which  will  fit  all,  or  nearly  all,  the  facts,  and 
yet  more  entirely  miss  the  truth,  by  a  mere 
accident,  than  would  a  frank  perplexity.  I 
think  that  he  himself  secretly  agreed  with 
me,  a  conviction  I  arrived  at  less  by  his 
own  doubting  words  after  the  reading  of 
the  letter,  than  by  his  manner  towards  me 
when  he  had  finished  the  story,  and  his 
mute,  but  none  the  less  absolute,  refusal  to 
discuss,  as  I  in  my  interest  would  willingly 
have  discussed,  certain  points  in  his  narra- 
tion. I  received  the  impression  that  he  had 
chosen  me  as  his  audience  merely  because 

142 


HERITAGE  143 

we  knew  nothing  of  one  another  beyond  our 
names,  from  a  craving  to  pour  out  that  long 
dammed-up  flood  of  emotion  and  medita- 
tion. I  had — a  somewhat  galling  reflection — 
played  the  part  of  the  ground  to  Malory's 
King  Midas.  I  think  that  his  indifference 
towards  me  turned  to  positive  dislike  after 
our  week  of  intimacy,  and  this  belief  was 
strengthened  when,  with  scarcely  a  farewell, 
he  took  an  abrupt  departure. 

I  will  confess  that  I  was  hurt  at  the  time, 
but  an  unaccountable  instinct  buoyed  me  up 
that  some  day,  it  might  be  after  the  passage 
of  years,  I  should  again  be  thrown  in  con- 
tact either  with  him  or  with  his  dramatis 
personce.  How  this  came  about  I  will  now 
tell,  though  I  do  not  pretend  that  any  more 
mysterious  purpose  than  my  own  desire 
intervened  in  the  accomplishment  of  my 
hopes.  Perhaps  Malory  would  say  that  War 
was  my  fate,  my  god  in  the  machine;  per- 
haps it  was;  I  do  not  know.  The  definition 
of  fate  is  a  vicious  circle;  like  a  little  animal, 
say  a  mouse,  turning  after  its  tail. 

I  left  Sampiero  in  1914,  a  year  after  I 
had  parted  there  from  Malory,  and  my 
earlier  prophecy  justified  itself,  that  our 


144  HERITAGE 

acquaintance  would  not  be  continued  in  our 
own  country.  In  fact,  amid  the  excitement 
of  the  war,  I  had  almost  forgotten  the  man, 
his  habitual  reticence,  his  sudden  outburst 
into  narrative,  and  the  unknown,  unseen 
people  with  whom  that  narrative  had  been 
concerned.  But  now  as  I  idled  disconsolately 
in  London,  discharged  from  hospital  but 
indefinitely  unfit  for  service,  there  stirred  in 
my  memory  a  recollection  of  the  Pennistans, 
who  were  to  me  so  strangely  familiar,  and 
I  resolved  that  I  would  go  for  myself  to 
pick  up  the  thread  where  Malory  had 
dropped  it,  to  work  on  the  fields  where  he 
had  worked,  and  to  probe  into  the  lives  he 
had  tried  to  probe. 

Hearing  that  the  small  help  I  could  give 
would  be  welcome,  I  started  out,  much,  I 
suppose,  as  Malory  had  started,  with  my 
bag  in  my  hand,  and  reached  the  tiny  sta- 
tion one  evening  in  early  April.  The  station- 
master  directed  me  across  the  fields,  by  a 
way  which  I  felt  I  already  knew,  and  as 
I  walked  I  wondered  what  had  become  of 
Malory;  presumably  he  had  turned  his  hand 
to  a  fighting  trade,  or  had  he  sought  some 
bizarre  occupation  congenial  to  him,  in  the 


HERITAGE  145 

bazaars  of  Bagdad,  or  in  a  North  Sea 
drifter,  or  had  the  air  called  to  him?  I 
could  not  decide;  perhaps  the  Pennistans 
would  have  news  of  his  whereabouts. 

But  they  had  none.  He  had  sent  them 
a  field  post  card  from  Gallipoli,  and  since 
then  he  had  again  disappeared;  they  did  not 
seem  very  much  surprised,  and  I  guessed 
that  in  their  slow  instinctive  way  they  had 
felt  him  to  be  a  transitory,  elusive  man,  who 
might  be  expected  to  turn  up  in  his  own 
time  from  some  unanticipated  corner.  They 
suggested,  however,  that  I  should  walk  over 
to  Westmacotts'  on  a  Sunday,  and  inquire 
from  their  daughter  Ruth  about  Mr.  Malory. 

I  cannot  say  that  I  was  unhappy  at  the 
Pennistans',  for,  though  I  fretted  a  good  deal 
at  my  comparative  inactivity,  the  peace  and 
stability  of  the  place,  of  which  Malory  had 
so  often  spoken,  stole  over  me  with  gradual 
enchantment  of  my  spirit,  like  the  incoming 
tide  steals  gradually  over  the  sands.  Dur- 
ing the  first  days  I  took  a  curious  delight 
in  discovering  the  spots  that  had  figured  in 
his  story,  the  fields,  the  dairy,  and  the  cow- 
shed, in  recognising  the  pungent  farm  smells 
which  had  pleased  his  alert  senses.  These 


146  HERITAGE 

things  were  the  same,  but  in  other  respects 
much  was  changed.  The  three  bullock-like 
sons  were  gone,  and  few  men  remained  to 
work  the  land.  Rawdon  Westmacott,  they 
told  me,  was  at  the  war,  so  was  Nancy's 
husband.  And  on  sunny  days  I  used  to 
watch  the  aeroplanes  come  sailing  up  out  of 
the  blue,  the  sun  catching  their  wings,  and 
tumble,  for  sheer  joy  it  seemed,  in  the  air, 
while  the  hum  of  their  engines  filled  the 
whole  sky  as  with  a  gigantic  beehive. 

One  detail  I  noticed  after  several  days. 
The  cage  of  mice  which  Malory  had  given 
to  Ruth  was  no  longer  in  the  place  I  ex- 
pected to  see  it,  on  the  kitchen  window-sill. 

The  unexpected  had  favoured  me  in  one 
particular.  Malory  had  mentioned  that  the 
old  woman  was  ninety-six  in  the  year  he 
had  gone  to  Pennistans',  and  although  he 
had  never,  so  far  as  I  remembered,  given 
a  date  to  that  year,  I  reckoned  that  she 
must,  if  alive  now,  have  passed  her  century. 
I  was  certain  I  should  find  her  gone.  Yet 
the  first  thing  I  saw  as  I  entered  the  house 
was  that  little  old  huddled  figure  by  the  fire, 
head  nodding,  hands  trembling,  alive  enough 
to  feed  and  breathe,  but  not  alive  enough 


HERITAGE  147 

for  anything  else;  she  spent  all  her  days  in 
a  wheeled  chair,  sometimes  in  the  kitchen, 
sometimes  in  her  own  room,  the  quondam 
parlour,  on  the  ground-floor  across  the  pas- 
sage; sometimes,  when  it  was  very  warm, 
beside  the  garden-door  out  in  the  sun.  She 
must  always  have  been  tiny,  but  now  the 
frailty  of  her  shrunken  form  was  pitiable. 
Her  wrists  were  like  the  legs  of  a  chicken. 
Her  jaws  were  fallen  in,  thin  and  flabby; 
her  eyes  never  seemed  to  blink,  but  stared 
straight  in  front  of  her,  at  nothing,  through 
everything.  .  .  . 

I  had  Malory's  bedroom.  It  was  bare, 
whitewashed,  monastic,  and  appeared  to  me 
peculiarly  suitable  as  a  shrine  to  his  person- 
ality. I  wondered  whether  he  had  spent  any 
part  of  his  wandering  life  in  the  seclusion 
of  a  cloister,  and  as  I  wondered  the  realisa- 
tion came  over  me  that  Malory  was  in  spirit 
nearly  allied  to  those  mediaeval  scholars,  so 
unassuming,  so  far  removed  from  the  desire 
of  fame,  as  to  dedicate  their  anonymous  lives 
to  a  single  script,  finding  in  their  own  inward 
satisfaction  the  fulfilment  of  personal  ambi- 
tion. And  as  I  thought  on  Malory,  in  that 
clean,  bare  room,  I  came  to  a  closer  under- 


148  HERITAGE 

standing  of  his  kinship  with  many  conditions 
of  men,  of  his  sympathy  with  life,  nature, 
and  craft — Malory,  the  man  who  had  not 
been  my  friend. 

As  the  week  passed,  I  found  myself  greatly 
moved  by  the  prospect  of  seeing,  of  speak- 
ing with  Ruth.  As  I  drew  near  to  West- 
macotts',  I  felt  the  physical  tingling  of 
intense  excitement  run  over  me.  I  was 
about  to  meet  a  dear  companion,  to  hear 
the  sound  of  her  voice,  and  to  look  into  the 
familiarity  of  her  eyes.  Another  picture 
swam  up  out  of  the  mist  to  dim  my  vision, 
a  babbling  music  filled  my  ears  like  the 
sound  of  waves  in  a  shell,  and  the  faintest 
scent  quivered  under  my  nostrils;  gradually 
as  these  ghosts  emerged  from  the  confusion 
I  defined  the  Italian  hill-side,  the  rushing 
stream,  and  the  dry,  aromatic  scent  of  the 
ground.  Was  this,  then,  the  setting  in  which 
Ruth  walked  and  spoke  for  me?  I  was 
startled  at  the  vividness  of  the  impression, 
and  at  the  incredibly  subtle  complexity  of 
the  ordinary  brain. 

Although  Malory  had  never,  so  far  as  I 
could  remember,  given  me  any  description 
of  Westmacott's  farm,  whether  of  impres- 


HERITAGE  149 

sion  or  detail,  I  recognised  the  place  as  soon 
as  I  had  emerged  from  a  little  wood  and 
had  seen  it  lying  in  a  hollow  across  the 
ploughed  field,  a  connecting  road  which  was 
little  more  than  a  cart-track  running  from 
it  at  right  angles  into  the  neat  lane  beyond. 
I  recognised  the  farm-house,  of  creamy 
plaster  heavily  striped  by  gray  oak  beams, 
its  upper  story  slightly  overhanging,  and 
supported  on  rounded  corbels  of  the  same 
bleached  oak,  rough-hewn.  I  was  prepared 
to  see,  as  I  actually  saw,  the  large  barn  of 
black,  tarred  weather-boarding,  terminated 
by  the  two  rounded  oast-houses,  and 
should  have  missed  it  had  I  not  found  it 
there. 

And  I  knocked,  and  the  sense  of  reality 
still  failed  to  return  to  me.  Some  one 
opened  the  door.  I  saw  a  young  woman 
in  a  blue  linen  dress,  with  a  child  in  her 
arms,  and  other  children  clinging  about  her 
skirts.  My  first  impression  was  of  astonish- 
ment at  her  beauty;  Malory  had  led  me  to 
expect  a  subtle  and  languorous  seduction, 
but  I  was  not  prepared  for  such  actual 
beauty  as  I  now  found  in  her  face. 

"Are  you  Mrs.  Westmacott?"  I  asked. 


150  HERITAGE 

"Yes,  sir,"  she  said,  "are  you  the  gentle- 
man that's  stopping  with  father?" 

"I  see  you  know  about  me." 

"Yes,  sir;  mother  was  over  yesterday,  and 
said  you'd  likely  be  coming.  Won't  you 
come  in,  sir?  if  you'll  excuse  the  children. 
There's  only  me  to  look  after  them  to-day." 

I  went  into  a  clean  and  commonplace 
kitchen,  and  Ruth  wiped  a  chair  for  me  with 
her  skirt,  and  put  the  baby  into  its  cradle. 
She  then  sat  down  beside  it,  and  with  her 
foot  kept  the  cradle  moving  on  its  rockers. 
I  glanced  round,  and  on  the  window-sill, 
among  the  pots  of  red  geranium,  I  espied  a 
wire  cage  with  some  little  mice  huddled  in 
a  corner. 

"Mrs.  Westmacott,"  I  said,  feeling  that  the 
beginning  of  the  conversation  rested  with  me, 
"you  and  I  are  quite  old  friends  though  you 
may  not  know  it."  I  hated  myself  for  my 
jocularity.  "You  remember  Mr.  Malory? 
He  has  spoken  to  me  about  his  life  here,  and 
about  you." 

I  was  looking  at  her;  I  saw  that  marvel- 
lous, that  red  rose  blush  of  which  Malory 
had  spoken,  come  up  under  her  skin  till  her 
cheek  was  like  the  rounded  beauty  of  a 


HERITAGE  151 

nectarine.  And  I  wondered,  as  I  had  won- 
dered before;  I  wondered  .  0  . 

"And  what  news  have  you  of  Mr. 
Malory?"  she  asked. 

"None,"  I  said.  "I  thought  perhaps  you 
might  have  heard." 

"I?  If  Mr.  Malory  was  to  write  at  all, 
would  he  not  have  written  to  you?  Why 
should  he  write  to  me?" 

"I  hope,"  I  said,  "that  nothing  has  hap- 
pened to  him." 

She  had  answered  me  before  I  had  finished 
speaking. 

"Nothing  has  happened  to  him." 

"Why,"  I  said  surprised,  "how  are  you  so 
certain?" 

She  looked  suddenly  trapped  and  angry. 

"It's  an  odd  name,"  she  said  at  last,  "  one 
would  notice  it  in  a  casualty  list."  She  rushed 
on.  "We  poor  women,  you  know,  have  to 
keep  our  eye  on  the  lists;  there's  few  officers, 
but  many  men,  a  mistake's  soon  made,  and 
my  husband  is  there  in  France.  This  is  my 
husband."  She  lifted  a  photograph  and 
showed  me  the  keen,  Arab  face  I  had 
expected. 

"Mr.   Malory   always  told  me  your  hus- 


152  HERITAGE 

band  was  a  very  handsome  man.  Are  any 
of  your  children  like  him?" 

I  wished  that  Malory  could  have  seen  the 
softening  of  her  face  when  I  spoke  of  her 
children. 

"No,  sir,"  she  said,  and  I  could  have 
sworn  I  heard  an  exultant  note  in  her  voice. 
"They  mostly  take  after  their  grandmother, 
I  think,"  and  indeed  I  could  see  in  the  sleep- 
ing baby  an  absurd  resemblance  to  Mrs. 
Pennistan.  "Now  my  sister's  children,  she 
has  two,  and  one  is  fair  like  her,  and  one 
is  as  dark  as  my  husband." 

I  do  not  know  what  impulse  moved  me  to 
rise  and  go  over  to  the  cage  of  mice. 

"I  have  heard  of  these,  too,  from  Mr. 
Malory,"  I  said.  "You  have  had  them  six, 
seven,  eight  years  now?" 

"Oh,  sir,"  she  cried  amused,  "those  are  not 
the  pair  Mr.  Malory  gave  me.  Those  are 
their  great-great-great-great,  I  don't  know 
know  how  many  greats,  grandchildren.  I've 
bred  from  them  and  bred  from  them;  they're 
friendly  little  things,  and  the  children  like 
them." 

"How  do  they  breed  now?"  I  asked. 

"Well,"    she    replied,    "they   mostly   come 


HERITAGE  153 

brown,  I  notice;  I  fancy  the  strain's  wearing 
out.  From  time  to  time  I'll  get  a  black 
and  white  that  doesn't  waltz — waltzing  mice 
Mr.  Malory  used  to  call  them — and  from 
time  to  time  I'll  get  a  waltzer;  there  was  a 
lot  of  them  at  first,  one  or  two  in  a  litter, 
but  they're  getting  rare.  That  little  fellow," 
she  said,  pointing — and  as  she  stood  beside 
me  I  was  conscious  of  her  softness  and 
warmth,  and  felt  myself  faintly  troubled — 
"I've  known  him  waltz  once  only  since  I've 
had  him,  which  is  since  he  was  born.  I  look 
at  them,"  she  added  unexpectedly,  "when 
they're  blind  and  pink  in  the  nest,  and  won- 
der which'll  grow  up  brown  and  which'll 
waltz  and  which  be  just  piebald." 

"You  speak  like  Mr.  Malory,"  I  said. 

She  laughed  as  she  turned  away. 

"Is  that  so,  sir?  Well,  Mr.  Malory  always 
liked  the  mice,  I  don't  know  why.  He  lived 
with  us  over  a  year,  and  maybe  one  takes 
on  a  manner  of  thinking  in  a  year,  I  don't 
know." 

Somehow  I  felt  that  the  section  of  our 
conversation  dealing  with  Malory  was  closed 
by  that  remark.  We  hung  fire  for  a  little. 
Then  I  asked  her  to  show  me  over  the  place, 


154  HERITAGE 

which  she  did,  and  after  that  we  had  tea 
in  the  kitchen,  brown  bread  cut  from  the 
big  loaf,  honey  from  her  own  hives,  and  jam 
of  her  own  making.  I  watched  her  as  she 
laid  the  cloth,  noted  her  quick  efficiency,  was 
conscious  of  her  quiet  reserve  and  her 
strength,  saw  her  beauty  foiled  and  trebled 
by  the  presence  of  her  children.  After  tea 
she  made  me  smoke  a  pipe,  sent  the  children 
out  to  play,  and  sat  opposite  me  in  a  rock- 
ing chair  with  sewing  in  her  hands  and  more 
sewing  heaped  near  her  on  the  floor.  It 
was  very  pleasant  in  that  warm  interior,  the 
fire  crackled,  the  big  clock  ticked.  I  thought 
what  a  fool  Malory  had  been. 

I  walked  home  in  the  dusk,  hearing  what 
he  had  never  heard  from  those  meadows:  the 
thudding  and  bruising  of  the  distant  guns. 


II 


LITTLE  by  little  I  learnt  the  details  which 
linked  the  end  of  Malory's  story  to  the  point 
where  I  was  to  take  it  up.  Rawdon  West- 
macott,  in  spite  of  his  wife's  entreaties  to 
settle  in  another  part  of  the  country,  had 
insisted  on  returning  almost  directly  after 
their  marriage  to  his  farm,  and  there,  ignored 
by  her  own  family  and  by  the  whole  horri- 
fied, scandalised  countryside,  Ruth  had  dwelt 
in  a  companionship  more  terrible  than  soli- 
tude. For  Westmacott  had  followed  un- 
bridled his  habitual  paths  of  drunkenness  and 
violence.  How  grim  and  disquieting  must 
have  been  that  situation:  not  two  miles  sepa- 
rated Pennistans'  from  Westmacotts',  not 
two  miles  lay  between  the  parents  and  the 
daughter,  yet  they  were  divided  by  league 
upon  league  of  pride,  across  which  their 
mutual  longing  quivered  as  heat-waves  upon 
the  surface  of  the  desert.  The  mother,  I 
think,  would  have  gone,  but  Amos,  with  that 
Biblical  austerity  which  Malory  had  noted 

155 


156  HERITAGE 

in  him,  forbade  any  advance  towards,  any 
mention  of,  the  prodigal.  The  ideal  of 
decency,  which  is  the  main  ideal  of  the  coun- 
try people,  had  been  outraged,  and  this 
Amos,  the  heir  of  tradition,  could  not  for- 
give. During  the  greater  part  of  the  first 
year,  neither  Ruth  nor  her  mother  can  will- 
ingly have  stirred  far  from  their  own  garden 
door.  The  torment,  the  gnawing  of  that 
self-consciousness!  The  apprehension  of  that 
first  Sunday,  when  Amos  with  set  jaw  forced 
his  wife  to  church!  with  what  tremulousness 
she  must  have  entered  the  little  nave,  casting 
round  her  eyes  in  secret,  dreading  yet  hop- 
ing, relieved  yet  disappointed.  She  bore 
traces  of  the  strain,  the  buxom  woman,  in 
the  covert  glance  of  her  eyes  and  the  listen- 
ing, searching  expression  of  her  face.  I 
have  seen  her  start  at  the  sound  of  the  door- 
latch,  and  look  up  expectantly  as  she  must 
have  looked  in  those  days,  afraid  and  long- 
ing to  see  the  beloved  figure  in  the  door. 

The  tension  came  to  an  end  at  last,  for 
Nancy,  whose  will  might  not  be  crossed, 
burst  out  with  indignation  at  the  treatment 
of  her  sister  and  set  off  angrily  for  West- 
macotts'.  She  returned  within  an  hour  with 


HERITAGE  157 

the  information  that  Rawdon  was  dead 
drunk  in  the  kitchen  and  that  Ruth's  child 
would  surely  be  born  before  morning.  Mrs. 
Pennistan  had  not  known  of  the  child;  she 
leapt  to  her  feet  saying  that  she  must  go  at 
once,  and  upbraided  Amos  for  having  with- 
held her  so  long  from  her  own  flesh  and 
blood.  Amos  rose,  and  saying  gloomily, 
"Do  what  you  will,  but  don't  let  me  know 
of  it,"  he  left  the  room. 

I  know  nothing  of  the  meeting  between 
mother  and  daughter,  but  I  imagine  that  the 
sheer  urgency  of  the  situation  mercifully  did 
much  to  smooth  the  difficulty  of  the  moment. 
The  crisis  over,  a  new  order  of  things  re- 
placed the  old:  relations  were  re-established, 
and  Ruth  henceforward  came  and  went  be- 
tween her  present  and  her  former  home. 
Only,  the  Pennistans'  door  was  barred  to 
the  son-in-law,  as  their  lips  were  barred  to 
his  name.  At  the  most,  his  phantasm  hov- 
ered between  them. 

Now  I  have  told  all  that  I  could  recon- 
struct, and  most  of  this  I  heard  from  Nancy, 
who  was  a  frank,  outspoken  girl;  common, 
I  thought  her,  and  ordinary,  but  good-hearted 
underneath  her  exuberance.  She  had  lived 


158  HERITAGE 

at  home  since  her  husband  had  gone  to  fight. 
She  was  very  different  from  her  quiet  sister, 
as  different  as  a  babbling  brook  from  a 
wide,  calm  pool  of  water.  I  heard  a  great 
deal  of  abuse  of  Westmacott  from  her,  even 
to  tales  of  how  he  ill-treated  his  wife;  and 
I  also  heard  of  her  own  happiness,  confi- 
dences unrestrainedly  poured  out,  for  she 
was  innocent  of  reserve.  To  this  I  preferred 
to  listen,  though,  truthfully,  she  often  bored 
and  sometimes  embarrassed  me.  I  soon  dis- 
covered that  for  all  her  fiery  temper  she  was 
a  woman  of  no  moral  stamina,  and  I  didn't 
like  to  dwell  in  my  own  mind  upon  her  utter 
annihilation  under  the  too  probable  blow  of 
war. 

The  blow  fell,  and  by  the  curse  of  Heaven 
I  was  there  to  see  it;  the  reality  of  the 
danger  had  always  seemed  remote,  even  in 
the  midst  of  its  nearness,  for  such  nightmares 
crawl  closer  and  closer  only  to  be  flung  back 
repeatedly  by  the  force  of  human  optimism. 
I  had  never  before  realised  the  depths  of 
such  optimism.  Her  first  cry  was  "It  can- 
not be  true!"  her  first  instinct  the  instinct  of 
disbelief.  In  the  same  way  she  had  always 
clung  to  an  encouraging  word,  however 


HERITAGE  159 

futile,  and  had  been  cast  down  to  an  equal 
degree  by  an  expression  of  pessimism.  I 
suppose  that  when  the  strings  of  the  human 
mind  are  drawn  so  taut,  the  slightest  touch 
will  call  forth  their  pathetic  music.  .  .  . 
Poor  Nancy!  I  had  seen  her  husband  on 
leave  for  ten  days  during  which  her  eyes  were 
radiant  and  her  voice  busy  with  song;  he 
went;  and  was  killed  the  day  after  his  re- 
turn to  France. 

Not  very  long  afterwards  I  got  a  letter 
from  Malory,  forwarded  and  re-forwarded, 
which,  coming  out  of  the,  so  far  as  he  was 
concerned,  silence  of  years,  reminded  me 
forcibly  of  the  day  he  had  broken  silence  at 
Sampiero.  It  gave  me  a  queer  turn  of  the 
heart  to  see  that  the  envelope  I  held  in  my 
hand  had  gone  first  of  all  to  Sampiero,  to 
our  little  lodging  house,  had  been  handled, 
no  doubt,  by  the  hunch-backed  postman  I 
had  known  so  well.  I  could  see  him,  going 
down  the  street,  with  his  bag  over  his  shoul- 
der, and  my  letter  in  his  bag.  I  could  see 
my  old  landlady  with  the  letter  in  her  hand, 
turning  it  over  and  over,  till  light  broke  on 
her,  and  she  remembered  the  Englishman, 
and  hunted  up  his  unfamiliar  address,  and 


160  HERITAGE 

wondered,    perhaps,    whether    he,    too,    had 
fallen  in  the  war. 

I  give  Malory's  letter  here. 

".  .  .1  read  his  name  in  the  official  list, 
and  can  only  suppose  that  it  is  my  Daphnis, 
as  I  know  he  was  in  a  Kentish  regiment. 
Oh,  these  yeomen  of  England,  of  whom  I 
always  thought  as  indigenous  to  the  soil, 
born  there,  living  there,  dying  there,  buried 
there,  with  no  knowledge  beyond  their 
counted  acres,  but  knowing  those  so  well  and 
thoroughly,  tree  by  tree,  crop  by  crop,  path 
by  path  through  the  woodland!  They  have 
been  uprooted  and  borne  to  foreign  shores, 
but  they  are  England,  and  it  is  for  their  own 
bit  of  England,  weald,  marsh,  or  fell,  that 
they  die. 

"They  have  lived  all  their  lives  in  security, 
and  the  security  of  centuries  lies  behind  them, 
as  the  volume  of  ocean  lies  behind  each  wave 
that  laps  the  shore.  Now  the  mammoth  of 
danger  and  unrest  prowls  round  their  home- 
steads, and  a  hand  whose  presence  they  did 
not  suspect  moves  and  removes  them,  pawns 
in  the  game.  How  can  they  understand? 
They  do  not.  They  only  cling,  for  the  sake 


HERITAGE  161 

of  sanity,  to  what  they  know:  their  corner 
of  England  and  their  own  individuality, 
rocks  which  have  been  with  them  since  they 
were  born,  and  which  in  the  thunderstorm 
about  their  ears  they  can  retain  unaltered. 

"I  live  amongst  them  now,  and  I  know. 

"I  have  been  once  in  a  great  earthquake, 
and  I  know  that  the  secret  of  its  terror  is 
that  the  earth,  the  steady  immutable  earth, 
betrays  the  confident  footstep.  So  in  this 
earthquake  men  cling  to  themselves  and  to 
their  land,  as  they  know  it,  as  immutable 
things. 

"I  am  living  now  in  a  great  peace;  I  do 
not  hear  the  din  around  me;  I  am  as  one  in 
the  centre  of  those  tropical  winds,  where  all 
that  is  in  the  path  of  the  hurricane  is 
destroyed,  but  in  the  still  and  silent  centre 
birds  sing  and  leaves  do  not  stir.  Or  I  am 
as  a  totally  deaf  man,  the  drums  of  whose 
ears  are  burst.  I  am  happy. 

"But  the  others,  who  are  in  the  path  of 
the  wind,  they  are  clouted  and  pushed  and 
beaten,  blinded  and  deafened  by  the  cyclone. 
They  are  made  to  gyrate  as  the  little  mice 
were  made  to  gyrate.  What  is  it,  oh  God, 
that  drives  us,  poor  creatures? 


162  HERITAGE 

"I  am  not  one  of  those  who,  at  this  mo- 
ment, hold  that  the  war  is  supreme  and  all- 
eclipsing.  The  war  is  not  eternal,  and  its  pro- 
portions are  relative;  only  life  is  eternal,  and 
fate  is  eternal.  Fate!  Do  you  remember  the 
Pennistans,  and  how  fate,  the  freaky  hu- 
morist, played  her  tricks  upon  them?  There 
was  no  escape  for  them  then,  there  is  no 
escape  for  us  now. 

"If  all  mankind  were  resigned  to  fate, 
sorrow  would  take  wing  and  fly  from  the 
world. 

"I  think  of  this  present  stirring  of  nations 
as  the  stirring  of  huge  antediluvian  beasts, 
kicked  up  out  of  their  slumber  by  a  giant's 
foot,  and  fighting  amongst  themselves  like 
the  soldiers  of  Jason.  No  human  eye  can 
follow  the  drift  of  war,  as  no  human  mind 
can  encircle  the  entirety  of  modern  knowl- 
edge. We  are  as  men  in  the  valley,  with 
mountains  rising  around,  and,  beyond  each 
ridge  that  we  climb,  a  farther  ridge.  It  is 
for  the  geographers  of  the  future  to  come 
with  their  maps  and  measure  peak  after  peak 
to  their  correctness  of  altitude.  And  it  is 
for  us  to  remember  that  as  the  highest  peak 
is  as  nothing  upon  the  perfect  roundness  of 


HERITAGE  163 

the  globe,  so  is  our  present  calamity  as  noth- 
ing upon  the  perfect  roundness  of  the  scheme 
of  destiny." 

Again  that  strange  impulse  to  confide  in 
me!  in  me  the  stranger  whom  he,  if  any- 
thing, disliked.  I  wondered  whether  our 
whole  lives  were  to  be  punctuated  by  these 
spasmodic  confidences,  and  whether  the  forg- 
ing of  a  number  of  such  links  would  finally 
weave  together  a  chain  of  friendship?  I 
reflected  that  he,  the  analyst,  could  probably 
explain  the  kink  in  men's  brains  by  which 
confidential  expansion  is  not  necessarily 
based  on  sympathy,  but  I  admitted  to  myself 
that  I  was  routed  by  the  problem. 

I  liked  his  letter;  it  produced  in  me  a  sen- 
sation of  peace  and  light,  and  of  a  great 
broadening.  I  envied  him  his  balance  and 
his  sanity.  I  envy  him  still  more  now  that 
peace  has  come,  and  that  the  rapid  perspec- 
tive of  history  already  shows  me  the  preci- 
sion of  his  judgment. 

I  showed  part  of  the  letter  to  Ruth, 
curious  to  observe  the  impression  which 
Malory's  reflections  would  produce  on  a 
primitive  and  uncultivated  brain.  I  knew 


164  HERITAGE 

that  that  letter  was  not  the  outcome  of  a 
transitory  or  accidental  frame  of  mind,  but 
that,  like  a  rock  gathering  speed  as  it  bowls 
down  the  side  of  a  hill,  the  swell  and  rush 
of  his  considered  thought  had  borne  him 
along  until  his  fingers,  galloping  to  the  dic- 
tation of  his  mind,  had  covered  the  sheets 
I  now  held  in  my  hand.  Ruth  frankly  under- 
stood no  word  of  his  letter.  She  merely 
asked  me  in  her  direct  way  whether  I  thought 
Mr.  Malory  was  sorry  her  brother-in-law 
had  been  killed.  Privately  I  thought  that 
some  devilish  cynicism  in  the  man,  some  re- 
volting sense  of  artistic  fitness,  would  rejoice 
in  a  detached,  inhuman  fashion,  at  the  per- 
tinence of  the  tragedy. 

He  said  in  his  next  letter  to  me — a  reply 
to  a  letter  of  mine: — 

"...  Destiny  and  nature  are,  after  all, 
the  only  artists  of  any  courage,  of  any 
humour.  Do  they  take  Rawdon  West- 
macott?  for  whose  disappearance  all  con- 
cerned must  pray;  no,  they  take  Daphnis, 
who,  of  the  thirty  or  forty  million  fighting 
men,  is  in  the  minority  that  should  be  spared. 

"From  the  beginning  they  have  exercised 


HERITAGE  165 

their  wit  on  these  innocent  country  people. 
How  can  we  escape  from  their  humour, 
when  it  gambols  around  us  in  the  unseen? 
we  cannot  escape  it,  we  can  only  hope  to 
cap  it  with  the  superlative  humour  of  our 
indifference. 

"Around  how  many  homes  must  it  be 
gambolling  now!  from  the  little  centre  in 
the  Weald  of  Kent,  which  is  known  to  both 
you  and  me,  to  the  little  unknown  centres 
of  human  life  in  the  heart  of  Asia,  where 
anxiety  dwells,  and  where  no  news  will  ever 
come,  but  where  hope  will  flag  and  droop 
day  by  day,  till  at  last  it  expires  in  hopeless 
certainty. 

"If  you  do  not  hear  of  me  again,  you  may 
conclude  that  the  arch- joker  has  taken  me 
also,  but  remember  that  I  shall  have  had 
the  laugh  on  him  after  all,  for  I  shall  not 
care.  However,  I  shall  probably  be  spared, 
for  no  man  or  woman  would  weep  for  me. 

"One's  chief  need,  one's  principal  craving, 
I  find,  is  to  get  Death  into  his  true  propor- 
tion. We  have  always  been  accustomed  to 
think  of  Death  as  a  suitable  and  even 
dignified  ending  to  life  in  old  age,  but  to 
regard  the  overtaking  of  youth  by  Death 


166  HERITAGE 

in  quite  a  different  light,  as  an  unspeakable 
calamity.  Here,  of  course,  such  an  over- 
taking is  of  everyday  occurrence.  This,  you 
will  say,  is  a  truism.  I  answer,  that  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  truism  in  war;  there  is 
only  Truth. 

"If  I  take  all  my  reflections  about  Death, 
slender  as  is  their  worth,  and  pass  them 
through  a  sieve  of  analysis,  what  do  I  get? 
I  get,  as  a  dominant  factor,  Pity.  Pity,  yes, 
pity  that  these  young  men  should  have 
missed  the  good  things  life  would  have  given 
them;  not  horror  so  much  that  they  should 
be  in  the  blackness  below  the  ground,  as 
pity  that  they  should  not  be  above  it  in  the 
light.  .  .  ."' 

An  intense  anger  and  irritation  rose  in  me 
at  his  passive  acceptance  of  what  he  termed 
fate.  If  man  must  struggle  against  his 
fellow-men  in  order  to  survive  in  the  life- 
battle,  then  why  not  against  fate  also?  He 
who  does  not  resist  must  inevitably  be 
crushed.  It  was  at  this  stage  that  my  great 
scheme  began  to  formulate  in  my  mind,  by 
which  I  should  defeat  fate  for  the  sake  of 
Malory  and  Ruth;  partly,  largely,  for  the 


HERITAGE  167 

sake  of  their  happiness,  but  partly  also,  I 
must  admit,  for  the  triumph  of  taking  Malory 
by  the  hand  and  showing  him  how  with  the 
help  of  a  little  energy  I  had  overcome  the 
destiny  he  had  been  passively  prepared  to 
accept  as  inevitable.  I  would  pit  my 
philosophy  against  his  philosophy,  and  inci- 
dentally bring  two  muddled  lives  to  a  satis- 
factory conclusion. 

I  hugged  my  scheme  to  myself  in  the 
succeeding  months  as  a  lunatic  hugs  an 
obsession. 


Ill 


I  WAS  a  little  disturbed  by  the  thought  that 
even  I  could  not  make  myself  wholly  inde- 
pendent of  what,  for  want  of  a  better  word, 
I  had  to  call  fate;  independent  of  a  certain 
Providence  whose  concurrence  I  daily  im- 
plored, but  on  whose  nature  I  deliberately 
tried  to  set  a  more  religious  complexion  than 
did  Malory,  who  was  frankly,  in  every 
instinct,  a  pagan.  Wriggle  as  I  might,  I 
could  not  wriggle  away  from  the  fact  that 
as  prime  essentials  to  the  success  of  my 
scheme  stood  the  survival  of  Malory  and  the 
non-survival  of  Westmacott.  If  the  un- 
known chose  to  thwart  me  in  these  two  par- 
ticulars, my  cherished  plan  must  come  to 
naught,  but  a  conviction,  whose  very  inten- 
sity persuaded  me  of  its  truth,  entered  into 
my  spirit  that  in  this  respect  at  all  events 
all  would  be  well. 

As  the  war  progressed  I  fell  into  one  of 
the  inconsistencies  of  our  nature,  for  as  the 
news  of  Malory  continued  good  I  came 

168 


HERITAGE  169 

gradually  to  feel  that  his  safety  up  to  this 
point  was  growing  into  a  kind  of  earnest 
for  his  safety  in  the  future — a  conclusion 
in  itself  totally  illogical — whereas  the  equally 
continued  safety  of  Westmacott,  whom  I  so 
ardently  desired  out  of  the  way,  distressed 
me  not  at  all. 

Was  I  presumptuous  in  thus  constituting 
myself  the  guardian  angel  of  two  lives?  I 
was  only  a  poor  wreck,  flotsam  of  the  war, 
cheated  of  the  man's  part  I  had  hoped  to 
play,  and  nursing  my  scheme  like  an  old 
maid  cheated  of  the  woman's  part  she,  on 
her  side,  should  have  played  on  earth. 

I  shall  not  dwell  longer  than  I  need  upon 
the  days  of  the  war,  considering  them  rather 
as  an  incident,  a  protracted  incident,  than 
as  a  central  point  in  my  story,  for  we  have 
no  need  or  desire  to  revive  artificially  the 
realities  we  have  lived  through.  I  quote, 
however,  Malory  on  this  subject: — 

"...  Our  sons  will  scarcely  be  our  chil- 
dren, for  the  war  will  have  fathered  them 
and  mothered  them  both.  The  children  of 
the  war!  growing  up  with  the  shadow  of 
that  great  parent  in  the  background  of  their 


170  HERITAGE 

lives,  a  progenitor  dark  as  the  night,  yet 
radiant  as  the  sun;  torn  with  misery,  yet 
splendid  and  entire  with  glory;  poor  and 
bereft  by  ruin,  yet  rich  with  gold-mines  as 
the  earth;  a  race  of  men  sprung  from  loins 
broad  and  magnificent.  They  will  stand  like 
the  survivors  of  the  Flood  when  the  waters 
had  retreated  from  the  clean-washed  world. 
What  will  they  make  of  their  opportunity? 
They  will  not,  I  trust,  hold  up  a  mirror  to 
reflect  the  familiar  daily  tragedy,  but  out 
of  the  depths  of  their  own  enfranchised 
hearts  will  call  up  a  store  of  little,  lovely, 
sincere,  human,  and  simple  things  wherewith 
to  make  life  sweet.  They  must  be  as  chil- 
dren in  a  meadow.  Let  us  have  done  with 
pretence  and  gloom.  There  is  no  room  now 
in  the  world  for  the  introspective  melancholy 
of  the  idler.  We  hope  for  a  world  of  active 
sanity." 

He  reverted  several  times  to  the  men  who 
had  been  torn  from  their  homes,  the  men 
who,  but  for  war,  would  never  have  gone 
beyond  the  limit  of  their  parish.  He  com- 
pared himself  angrily  with  them,  and  I  per- 
ceived that  his  theory,  in  embryo  at  Sam- 


HERITAGE  171 

piero,  had  struck  deep  roots  under  the  rain 
of  present  day  realities. 

".  .  .1  want  to  shout  it  aloud:  objectiv- 
ity! objectivity!  action,  the  parent  of  thought. 
We  had  worn  thought  to  a  shadow,  with 
hunting  him  over  hill,  plain,  and  valley.  We 
were  miners  who  had  exhausted  the  drift  of 
gold.  Thank  God,  we  are  daily  burying 
fresh  gold  for  our  successors.  We  were  sick 
with  the  sugar  of  introspection;  introspec- 
tion, subtlest  of  vanities;  introspection,  the 
damnable  disease.  We  were  old  and  out- 
worn in  spirit.  The  soil  bore  weakly  crops, 
and  cried  out  for  nourishment.  We  are  giv- 
ing it  blood  to  drink,  and  it  grows  fertile 
in  the  drinking. 

"I  am  aware  of  the  coarsening  of  my 
fibres;  I  grow  more  conscious  of  my  body, 
less  conscious  of  my  mind.  I  am  very 
humble.  I  know  that  the  meanest  hind  who 
turned  the  ridges  under  the  ploughshare 
had  a  truer  value  than  I,  the  critic,  the 
analyst — I  use  the  words  disparagingly— 
the  commentator.  He  silently  constructed 
while  I  noisily  destroyed." 

Malory  continued  at  great  length  in  this 


172  HERITAGE 

strain,  and  I  read  between  the  lines  of  his 
letter  that  he  had  devoted  much  of  the  in- 
tolerable leisure  of  his  soldier's  life  to  the 
evolution  of  a  new  creed,  not  really  new  to 
him,  for  its  precepts  were  and  must  always 
have  been  in  his  blood,  but  now  for  perhaps 
the  first  time  formulated  and  taken  close  to 
his  heart.  He  wrote  to  me  more  and  more 
openly,  and  I  knew  that  I  was  getting  the 
expression  of  his  inmost  thoughts.  I  have 
all  his  letters — for  they  came  now  in  num- 
bers though  with  great  irregularity — and 
have  sometimes  thought  that  I  have  not  the 
right,  nor  he  the  right  to  compel  me,  to  keep 
them  to  myself.  As  he  said: — 

"...  All  men  have  creeds,  and  I  behold 
myself  a  faddist  in  a  universe  of  faddists. 
I  cannot  be  wholly  right,  nor  they  wholly 
wrong.  But  I  argue  in  my  own  defence, 
that  a  creed  such  as  mine,  resting  on  many 
pillars,  the  most  mighty  of  which  is  the  pil- 
lar of  tolerance,  is  at  least  inoffensive  in  a 
world  it  does  not  even  seek  to  convert.  I 
offer  my  little  gift — and  if  it  is  rejected  I 
withdraw  my  hand,  and  tender  it  elsewhere. 

"I  am  not  concerned  with  practical  mat- 


HERITAGE  173 

ters,  nor  with  controversial  subjects;  I  am 
not  a  political  or  a  social  reformer,  nor  a 
nut-eater,  nor  a  prophet  of  the  Pit.  I  am 
not,  I  fear,  a  very  practical  preacher  even 
in  my  own  region,  for  my  words,  were  I 
ever  to  spread  them  abroad,  could  germinate 
only  in  the  ready  tilled  field  of  a  contented 
soul,  and  will  put  no  bread  into  the  mouth 
of  the  hungry.  So  I  desist,  for  mere  reflec- 
tion is  of  no  value  in  our  times,  and  he  alone 
has  justified  his  existence  who  has  relieved 
the  poor,  benefited  the  sickly,  or  fed  the 
starving." 

I  do  not  wholly  agree  with  him. 

At  least  in  one  particular  I  will  take  his 
advice,  and  will  not  dwell  further  upon 
those  years.  We  know  now  that,  inter- 
minable as  they  seemed  at  the  time,  they 
passed,  and  in  a  golden  autumn  peace  came 
to  the  earth  like  sleep  returning  after  night 
upon  night  of  insomnia.  Malory  wrote  to 
me  on  that  occasion  also,  a  letter  more  full 
of  sarcasm,  bitterness,  and  sorrow  than  any 
I  had  yet  received. 

".  .  .  So  here  we  are  at  last  at  the  end 
of  this  long,  long  road,  more  like  straight 


174  HERITAGE 

railway-lines  than  like  a  road,  which  is  a 
poetical  thing.  I  look  back,  and  I  see  iron 
everywhere:  iron  hurtling  through  the  air 
and  smashing  against  the  soft  flesh  of  men 
and  the  softer  hearts  of  women;  iron  thun- 
dering in  the  sea;  masonry  toppling;  careful 
labour  destroyed;  skies  full  of  black  smoke; 
giant  machines.  Impressionism  is  the  only 
medium  to  express  the  war.  In  this  chaos 
little  men  have  laboured,  trying  to  put  their 
brains  round  the  war  like  putting  a  string 
round  the  globe;  and  pitting  their  little 
bodies  against  the  moving  tons  of  iron,  like 
a  new-born  baby  trying  to  push  against  a 
Titan.  What  has  emerged?  a  new,  a  great 
tradition,  greater  than  the  Trojan  or  the 
Elizabethan;  a  new  legend  for  the  ornament 
of  art.  For  it  all  comes  down  to  art  in  the 
end;  the  legend  is  greater  than  the  fact;  the 
mind  survives  the  perishing  matter.  We  are 
the  heirs  of  the  past.  The  man  of  action  is 
the  progenitor  of  the  dreamer.  What  am  I 
saying?  The  progenitor?  he  is  the  manure, 
merely  the  manure  dug  into  the  soil  on  which 
the  dreamer  will  presently  grow.  Poor, 
inarticulate,  uncomprehending  men  have  died 
in  their  anonymous  millions  to  furnish  a 


HERITAGE  175 

song  for  the  future  singer,  a  vicious,  inver- 
tebrate effete,  no  doubt;  a  moral  hermaphro- 
dite of  a  worthless  generation. 

"How  many  before  me  have  asked,  What 
is  Truth?  is  it  indeed  a  flower  which  blooms 
only  on  a  dung-heap? 

".  .  .  I  have  seen  so  many  men  here  die 
in  their  prime,  who  were  precious  to  man- 
kind or  all  in  all  to  their  individual  loves, 
yet  they  have  been  taken,  and  I,  the  value- 
less, the  solitary,  am  left.  Is  there  a  pur- 
pose behind  these  things?  or  am  I  to  believe 
that  fate  is,  after  all,  the  haphazard  of 
chance?" 

We  held  no  peace  rejoicings  at  Pen- 
nistans',  for  Nancy's  sake;  peace  was  to  her 
an  additional  sorrow.  During  the  war  she 
had  had  the  feverish  interest  of  having  given 
her  greatest  sacrifice  to  the  ideal  of  the  mo- 
ment, but  as  the  horror  faded  away  so  the 
memory  of  those  who  had  died  faded  also. 
Nancy  and  her  kindred  ceased  to  shine  as 
the  heroic,  and  became  merely  the  unfor- 
tunate, a  sad  and  scattered  population  to 
whom  the  war  would  last,  not  a  few  years, 
but  all  their  lives.  Shattered  women  and 


176  HERITAGE 

shattered  men;  but  to  us  the  war  appeared 
already  as  a  nightmare  interlude  from  which 
we  had  wakened. 

I  was  now  confronted  with  my  own  par- 
ticular purpose,  the  one  I  had  bargained  with 
myself  to  carry  out;  I  turned  it  over  and 
over  in  my  mind,  and  though  by  the  light 
of  reason  I  could  perceive  no  solution  to 
the  obvious  difficulty  presented,  yet  my 
curious  instinct  persisted,  that  all  would  be 
well.  I  was  certain  that  my  purpose  was  a 
good  one.  I  contemplated  a  Malory  changed, 
softened,  hardened,  sobered,  steadied,  by  the 
red-hot  furnace  of  war;  he  had  called  him- 
self an  inconstant  man;  I  felt  that  he  would 
be  now  no  longer  inconstant.  I  contemplated 
a  Ruth  intolerant,  after  her  four  years  lived 
in  liberty,  of  her  former  bondage.  I  saw 
them  fuse,  in  my  own  mind,  in  mutual 
completion. 

In  the  meantime,  Westmacott  stood  omi- 
nously in  the  centre  of  the  road. 

I  heard  first  of  his  return  from  Amos,  as 
I  stood  with  Mrs.  Pennistan  watching  the 
folding  of  the  sheep.  Amos  had  brought  the 
sheep  with  him  in  a  cart  from  Tonbridge 
market;  he  was  taciturn  while  he  turned 


HERITAGE  177 

them  out  from  under  the  net  into  the  hurdled 
fold,  but  when  the  hired  man  had  driven 
away  the  lumbering  cart,  he  said,  jerking 
his  thumb  over  his  shoulder, — 

"Wife,  who  d'you  think  I  met  on  the  road 
yonder?" 

She  stared  at  him,  and  he  added,  in  his 
laconic  way, — 

"Rawdon." 

"He's  back?"  she  said,  dismayed. 

Amos  expanded. 

"Ay.  They've  a  system  for  bringing 
them  home,  it  seems,  according  to  their 
employ:  farmers  and  food  producers  come 
first." 

"Then  Malory,"  I  said  involuntarily,  "will 
come  among  the  last  lot  as  a  man  of  no 
occupation." 

"That'll  be  it.  We'll  be  looking  soon  for 
those  boys  of  ourn,"  he  said  to  his  wife. 

She  smiled  "gladly  at  him,  but  remained 
pensive.  Then  she  asked, — 

"Was  he  alone,  Amos?" 

"Ay.  He'd  his  pack  on  his  back,  too,  so 
I  doubt  he'd  come  from  the  station.  He'd 
his  back  to  Penshurst  and  his  face  towards 
home.  He  touched  his  cap  at  me,  friendly, 


178  HERITAGE 

and  I  twirled  my  whip  to  him,  friendly, 
too." 

"I'm  glad  of  that,"  his  wife  murmured. 

Amos  shrugged. 

"A  man's  glad  to  welcome  his  son-in-law 
back  from  the  wars,"  he  said  ironically  as  he 
turned  to  go. 

Mrs.  Pennistan  and  I  strolled  out  towards 
the  road, 

"He's  dead  against  Rawdon;  always  was," 
she  said  in  a  distressed  tone.  "I  was  for 
making  up,  and  making  the  best  of  it,  but 
Pennistan  isn't  that  sort.  He'd  sooner  have 
life  unbearable  than  go  a  tittle  against  his 
prejudices.  After  all,  Rawdon's  married  to 
Ruth,  and  the  father  of  our  grandchildren, 
and  there's  no  going  against  that.  He's  an 
unaccountable  hard  man,  my  man,  when  he 
chooses.  I  couldn't  never  do  nothing  with 
him,  and  Nancy  she's  the  same." 

"And  Mrs.  Westmacott?"  I  asked. 

The  distress  in  her  tone  deepened. 

"I  used  to  think  Ruth  a  good  quiet  girl, 
but  since  the  trick  she  played  me  over  her 
marriage  I  haven't  known  what  to  think. 
I've  lain  awake  o'  nights  worrying  over  it. 
You've  heard  the  whole  tale  from  Mr. 


HERITAGE  179 

Malory.  Gentle  she  was  until  then,  and  a 
good  daughter  to  me,  I  must  say,  and  then 
.  .  .  gone  in  a  night  withouten  a  sign,  and 
never  a  word  to  me  in  explanation  since. 
What's  a  mother  to  make  of  that?" 

I  could  have  laughed  at  the  poor  woman's 
perplexity.  I  thought  of  the  hen  whose 
brood  of  ducklings  takes  suddenly  to  the 
water. 

"But  has  she  never  alluded  to  her  .  .  . 
her  elopement?" 

"Never  a  word,  I  tell  you.  I  asked  her 
once,  and  she  put  on  a  look  as  black  as 
night,  and  I  never  asked  her  again.  I've 
sometimes  wished  Mr.  Malory  could  speak 
to  her,  I've  a  fancy  she  might  answer  him 
freer;  and  yet  I  don't  know." 

"I've  never  fully  understood,"  I  said, 
wishing  to  make  the  most  of  my  opportunity, 
"whether  she  cares  at  all  for  her  husband  or 
not?" 

"Small  wonder  that  you  haven't  under- 
stood," said  Mrs.  Pennistan  tartly,  "when 
her  own  mother  is  kept  out  in  the  dark.  It's 
my  belief  she  hates  him,  and  it's  my  knowl- 
edge that  he  ill-treats  her,  but  at  the  same 


180  HERITAGE 

time  it's  my  instinct  she  loves  him  in  a  way. 
It  sounds  a  hard  thing  to  say  of  one's  child, 
but  I've  always  held  Ruth  was  a  coarse, 
rough  creature  at  times  under  her  smooth- 


ness." 


She  instantly  repented  of  her  words. 

"There,  what  am  I  saying  of  my  own  kith 
and  kin?  I  get  mad  when  I  get  thinking 
of  my  girl,  so  you  mustn't  lay  too  much 
store  by  my  talk.  Pennistan'd  give  it  me  if 
he  heard  me." 

I  persisted. 

"Then  you  think  that,  when  she  ran  away 
with  him,  she  hated  him  and  loved  him  both 
together?" 

Mrs.  Pennistan  paused  for  a  long  time. 

"Well,"  she  said  at  last,  "if  you  ask  me 
what  I  think,  it's  this.  There  was  a  deal 
more  in  that  running  away  than  any  of  us 
knew  at  the  time.  What  it  exactly  was  I 
don't  know  even  now.  I  doubt  Ruth  doesn't 
know  either,  or  if  she  does  know,  she  doesn't 
own  to  it,  not  to  herself  even.  I  doubt 
Rawdon  knows  most  about  it." 

I  saw  another  man  becoming  inevitable. 

"And  Mr.  Malory?" 

She  shot  at  me  a  quick  suspicious  look. 


HERITAGE  181 

"You're  Mr.  Malory's  friend,  what  do  you 
know?" 

"I  know  nothing,"  I  said.  "He  didn't 
know  himself." 

"No,"  said  Mrs.  Pennistan  suddenly, 
"that's  the  truth.  He  didn't  know  himself. 
He  wasn't  a  man  to  fancy  those  things.  To 
me  it  was  as  plain  as  daylight,  but  Pen- 
nistan he  always  scoffed  at  me,  and  I  daren't 
speak  it  to  Ruth,  and  I've  thought  since 
that  maybe  I  was  wrong  after  all.  Maybe 
she  went  with  Rawdon  because  she  loved 
Rawdon:  maybe  she  didn't  go,  as  I've  some- 
times thought,  because  she  was  afraid.  .  .  . 
It's  hard,  isn't  it,  to  see  into  people's  hearts, 
even  when  you  live  in  the  same  house  with 
them?  Day  in,  day  out,  and  you  know  lit- 
tle more  of  them  than  the  clothes  they  wear 
and  what  they  like  to  get  to  eat." 

I  was  sorry  for  her.     She  went  on, — 

"Your  children,  they  seem  so  close  to  you 
when  they're  little;  they  come  to  you  when 
they're  hungry,  and  they  come  to  you  when 
they  tumble,  and  you  cosset  them;  and  then 
when  they're  big  you  find  you're  the  last 
person  they  want  to  come  to.  It's  cruel 
hard  sometimes  on  a  woman.  But  they  don't 


182  HERITAGE 

mean  it,"  she  added,  brightening,  "and  my 
children  have  been  good  children  to  me,  even 
Ruth." 

I  met  Westmacott,  the  formidable  man, 
the  day  after  his  return,  a  Sunday,  walking 
on  the  village  green  with  his  wife  and  the 
two  eldest  children.  As  I  looked  at  him  I 
felt  a  little  pang  of  horror  on  realising  how 
ardently  I  had  desired  this  man  to  die  in 
the  trenches,  and  now,  as  he  materialised 
for  me  out  of  a  mere  name  into  a  creature 
of  flesh  and  blood,  I  grew  dismayed,  and 
was  overcome  by  the  reality  of  the  obstacle. 
Perhaps  I  had  always  unconsciously  thought 
of  him  as  a  myth.  And  now  here  he  was, 
and  Ruth  shyly  introduced  me. 

I  fancied  I  caught  a  sullen  look  on  her 
face,  a  look  of  suffering,  long  lulled  to 
sleep,  and*  suddenly  returned.  Perhaps  for 
the  last  four  years  he  had  been  a  myth  to 
her  also. 

By  his  home-coming  he  soon  waked  the 
echoes  of  scandal;  his  way  of  life,  they  said, 
had  not  been  mended  by  the  war,  and  after 
the  long  restraint  of  discipline  he  broke 
loose  into  his  old  debauches.  I  noted  the 


HERITAGE  183 

growing  of  that  sullen  look  on  Ruth's  fea- 
tures; she  made  no  comment,  but  I  divined 
the  piling-up  of  the  thunderstorm.  So,  I 
thought,  she  must  have  looked  during  the 
month  of  her  engagement  to  Leslie  Dymock, 
when  Malory  in  his  error  had  considered  her 
as  a  nun  in  her  novitiate.  The  kettle,  she 
had  said,  is  long  on  the  hob  before  it  boils 
over. 

She  spent  less  time  at  Pennistans'  than 
formerly,  pride  and  obstinacy  withholding 
all  confession  from  her  lips  or  from  her 
actions.  Amos  was  gloomy,  and  Mrs.  Pen- 
nistan  oppressed.  As  for  me,  I  lived 
dreamily,  content  to  let  the  river  of  events 
carry  my  boat  onwards.  I  made  no 
prophecies  to  myself,  I  experienced  no  im- 
patience; Malory  was  not  yet  home,  and  I 
believed  that  by  the  time  he  got  home  my 
problem  would  have  resolved  itself  auto- 
matically. 


IV 


How?  I  never  formulated,  but  I  suppose 
now,  looking  back,  that  the  prosaic  solution 
of  divorce  lay  behind  my  evasions.  I  did 
not  take  into  account  the  dreary  conven- 
tionality of  the  English  side  to  Ruth's 
nature.  People  like  the  Pennistans  do  not 
divorce;  they  endure.  Nor  do  they  run 
away;  yet  Ruth  had  run  away.  Which 
would  prove  the  stronger,  her  life-long 
training,  or  the  flash  of  her  latent  blood? 

There  came  a  day — for  I  have  dallied 
a  long  time  over  Malory's  letters  and  my 
own  reflections — when  Ruth  came  into  Pen- 
nistans' kitchen,  hatless,  with  her  three  chil- 
dren clinging  round  her  skirts.  Her  father 
and  mother  stared  at  her;  she  gave  no  ex- 
planation, and  Amos,  who  was  a  great 
gentleman  in  his  way,  asked  for  none,  and 
moreover  checked  the  doleful  inquiries  of  his 
wife,  to  whom  the  prompt  and  vulgar  tear 
was  always  ready.  I  saw  then  a  certain 
likeness  between  the  father  and  the  daugh- 

184 


HERITAGE  185 

ter;  that  apostolic  beard  of  his  gave  him  a 
southern  dignity,  and  his  scarlet  braces 
marked  his  shirt  with  a  blood-red  slash,  as 
red  as  her  lips  over  her  little  teeth  white  as 
nuts.  She  could  remain  at  the  farm  as  long 
as  she  chose,  he  said.  She  had,  he  did  not 
add,  but  his  eyes  added  it,  a  refuge  from  all 
mankind  in  her  father. 

No  reproaches,  no  recriminations,  and 
when  Mrs.  Pennistan,  after  Ruth  had  gone 
out  with  all  apparent  calm  to  put  her  chil- 
dren to  bed,  began  anew  to  wonder  tearfully 
what  had  happened,  and  to  suggest  lugubri- 
ously that  as  Ruth  had  made  her  bed,  so 
she  must  lie  in  it,  he  checked  her  again  and 
frightened  her  into  silence  by  his  sternness. 
She  went  out  weeping,  and  Amos  and  I 
were  left  together. 

I  offered  to  go,  but  he  assured  me  that 
my  presence  in  the  house  would  be  a  help, 
adding  that  he  supposed  I  had  heard  some- 
thing of  his  daughter's  story,  and  that  her 
marriage  was  not  a  happy  one.  It  probably 
cost  him  a  great  effort  to  say  this.  I  tried 
to  make  it  as  easy  as  I  could  for  him.  He 
then  asked  me  to  remain  with  Ruth  should 
her  husband  follow  her,  and  should  he,  Amos, 


186  HERITAGE 

or  one  of  her  brothers,  not  be  in  the  house. 

I  could  see  that  he  thought  it  likely  West- 
macott  would  come  over  sooner  or  later. 

I  was  greatly  elated  at  the  turn  things 
had  taken,  and  felt  that  my  belief  in  the 
lucky  star  of  my  scheme  had  been  justified. 
I  had  no  doubt  now  that  Ruth  would  rid 
herself  of  Westmacott,  and  do  for  herself 
what  the  war  had  not  done  for  her.  I  hung 
about  the  farm  all  day,  partly  to  oblige 
Amos,  who  had  his  usual  work  to  attend  to, 
but  principally  to  satisfy  the  tense  spirit  of 
expectation  which  had  risen  in  me  since  the 
morning.  As  the  player  sees  an  imaginary 
line  running  between  his  ball  and  the  ob- 
jective, so  I  imagined  a  string  running 
between  the  moment  at  Sampiero  when 
Malory  had  said,  "Do  you  know  the  Weald 
of  Kent?"  and  this  moment  when  I,  a  tardy, 
but,  I  flattered  myself,  an  essential  actor, 
waited  about  Pennistans'  threshold  for  the 
advent  of  Rawdon  Westmacott.  All  the 
beads  but  one  were  now  threaded  on  that 
string;  I  must  watch  the  last  and  final 
threading,  before  I  could  put  on  the  clasp. 

Towards  evening  I  espied  Westmacott 
entering  a  distant  field,  and  something  in 


HERITAGE  187 

me  gave  a  fierce  leap  of  exultation.  I  then 
realised  the  practical  difficulties  of  the  posi- 
tion. Here  was  I,  left  on  guard,  but 
physically  quite  unable  to  grapple  with  the 
wiry  man  should  he  lay  hands  on  me,  or  on 
his  wife.  I  thought  for  an  instant  of  sum- 
moning Amos,  but  as  instantly  rejected  the 
idea:  the  final  act  must  lie  between  West- 
macott,  Ruth,  and  myself.  Had  I  been 
alone,  I  would  have  chanced  his  violence; 
as  it  was,  I  must  consider  the  woman.  I 
ran  quickly  into  the  house,  up  to  my  room, 
and  brought  down  my  service  revolver. 

When  I  came  into  the  kitchen  carrying 
this  weapon,  Ruth,  who  was  sitting  there 
sewing,  as  placidly,  I  swear,  as  she  had  sat 
sewing  in  her  own  kitchen  the  first  time  I 
had  seen  her,  looked  at  my  loaded  hand  and 
up  into  my  face  with  a  grave,  inquiring 
surprise.  I  reassured  her.  Her  husband,  I 
told  her,  was  coming  across  the  fields  and 
would  doubtless  insist  on  seeing  her,  and 
considering  the  nature  of  the  man  I  had 
thought  it  best  to  have  an  unanswerable 
threat  ready  to  hand.  With  that  muzzle  we 
would  keep  him  at  bay. 

Ruth    rose    very    quietly    and    took    the 


188  HERITAGE 

weapon  from  me.  I  had  no  idea  of  resist- 
ance. Malory  himself  could  not  have  felt 
more  definitely  than  I  that  the  words  we 
were  to  speak,  the  actions  we  were  to  per- 
form, were  already  written  out  on  a  slowly 
unwinding  scroll. 

She  asked  me  to  leave  her  alone  with  her 
husband;  to  my  feeble  protest,  made  by  my 
tongue,  but  barely  seconded  by  the  vital  part 
of  my  being,  the  part  so  intensely  conscious, 
yet  at  the  same  time  so  pervaded  by  a  sense 
of  trance  and  unreality, — to  that  feeble  pro- 
test she  replied,  bitterly  enough  that  she  had 
faced  him  many  times  before  and  with  my 
weapon  on  the  table  beside  her  would  face 
him  with  additional  confidence  and  security. 
She  had  already  taken  it  from  me,  and  now 
laid  it  on  the  table,  speaking  as  one  does 
to  a  child  from  whom  one  has  just  taken 
a  dangerous  toy.  She  smiled  as  she  spoke, 
so  serenely  that  I  felt  sure  she  had  accepted 
the  revolver  merely  for  the  sake  of  my  peace 
of  mind.  She  charged  me  to  keep  the  chil- 
dren away,  should  I  see  them  drawing  near 
to  the  house,  and  with  that  injunction  she 
took  me  kindly  by  the  shoulders  and  turned 
me  out  into  the  garden. 


HERITAGE  189 

Westmacott  entered  it  at  the  same  moment 
by  the  swing-gate.  His  looks  were  black  as 
he  passed  me  and  strode  into  the  house  he 
had  not  darkened  since  his  marriage.  I 
stood  out  in  the  garden  alone  in  the  dusk. 
I  looked  in  through  the  latticed  window  of 
the  kitchen,  seeing  every  detail  as  the  detail 
of  a  Dutch  picture,  lit  by  the  fire;  the  win- 
dow was  very  largely  blocked  by  the  red 
geraniums,  but  I  could  see  the  deal  table, 
the  swinging  lamp,  the  brass  ornaments 
gleaming  by  the  fireplace,  the  pictures  on  the 
walls,  the  thin  ribbon  of  steam  coming  from 
the  spout  of  the  singing  kettle;  I  could  even 
see  the  brown  grain  in  the  wood  of  which  the 
table-top  was  made.  I  saw  Ruth  standing, 
and  Westmacott  looking  at  her;  then  he 
caught  sight  of  me,  and  with  an  angry  gesture 
dragged  the  curtain  across  the  window. 

I  was  now  shut  out  from  all  participation 
in  this  act  of  the  drama,  but  I  did  not  care; 
I  felt  that  what  must  be,  must  be,  that  the 
inevitable  was  right,  and,  above  all,  ordained. 
Come  what  might,  no  human  agency  could 
interfere.  I  smiled  to  myself  as  I  thought 
of  Malory's  triumph  could  he  behold  my 
resignation,  and  as  I  smiled  I  felt  Malory's 


190  HERITAGE 

presence  in  the  garden,  waiting  like  me,  and, 
like  me,  entirely  passive.  I  saw  his  face; 
his  iron  gray  hair  where  it  grew  back  from 
his  temples;  I  saw  the  tiny  hairs  in  his  nos- 
trils, and  the  minute  pores  of  his  skin.  My 
head  was  swimming,  and  the  vividness  of 
my  perception  stabbed  me. 

Then  a  little  scent  floated  out  to  me,  and 
I  wondered  vaguely  what  it  was,  and  what 
were  the  memories  it  awakened,  and  in  some 
dim,  extremely  complicated  way  I  knew 
those  memories  were  awakened  by  a  mental 
rather  than  a  physical  process,  and  that  they 
were,  at  best,  only  second-hand.  A  narrow 
street,  yoked  bullocks,  and  the  clamour  of 
a  Latin  city.  .  .  .  These  meaningless  and 
irrelevant  words  shaped  themselves  out  of 
the  mist  of  my  sensitiveness.  I  linked  them 
and  the  picture  they  created  to  the  violence 
of  feeling  within  the  little  room  behind  the 
drawn  curtain,  and  as  I  did  so  they  fell  away 
together  from  the  twilit  English  garden,  the 
English  country;  fell  away  to  their  own 
place,  as  a  thing  apart;  or  shall  I  say,  they 
stood  behind  the  English  country  as  a 
ghostly  stranger  behind  a  familiar  form? 
This  was  the  ghost  of  which  Malory  had 


HERITAGE  191 

always  been  conscious.  Then  I  knew  that 
my  troubled  perplexity  was  but  the  echo  of 
Malory's  first  perplexity,  and  I  narrowed  it 
down  with  an  effort  of  will  to  the  scent  of 
roasting  chestnuts.  The  ancient  woman  in 
her  bedroom  was  at  her  usual  occupation. 
I  folded  my  arms  and  leant  my  back 
against  the  house  wall;  I  heard  the  rise  and 
fall  of  angry  voices  within  the  room;  I 
found  that  I  could  look  only  at  little  things, 
such  as  the  cracks  in  the  stone  paving  of  the 
garden  path,  or  the  latch  on  the  gate,  and 
that  the  horizon,  when  I  raised  my  eyes 
towards  it,  swam.  I  tried  to  drag  back  my 
failing  sense  of  proportions.  As  I  did  this, 
clinging  on  to  and  deliberately  ranging  my 
thoughts  in  ordered  formation,  there  emerged 
the  dearness  and  all-eclipsing  importance  of 
my  scheme  to  me  in  the  past;  I  realised 
that  never  for  a  moment  had  it  been  absent 
from  my  conscious  or  my  sub-conscious 
thought.  So,  I  said  to  myself,  this  is  the 
phenomenon  of  poets,  and  are  they,  I  won- 
der, as  passive  as  I  am  when  after  months 
of  carrying  their  purpose  in  their  brain,  the 
moment  comes  of  its  fruition?  Have  they, 
like  me,  no  feeling  of  control?  I  remem- 


192  HERITAGE 

bered  what  Malory  had  said  of  the  co- 
relation  of  human  effort. 

I  looked  towards  the  darkened  window 
and,  hearing  the  drone  of  voices,  beheld 
myself  again  as  the  brother  of  the  poet 
whose  puppets,  brought  by  him  to  a  certain 
point,  continue  to  work  along  the  lines  he 
has  laid  down,  as  though  independent  of  his 
agency.  I  would  resume  control,  I  thought, 
when  this  so  terribly  inevitable  act  had 
played  itself  out.  Then  I  would  step  in,  lead 
Malory  to  Ruth,  and  again  step  out,  leaving 
them  to  the  joy  of  their  bewilderment. 

Why  should  I  have  cherished  this  scheme 
so  passionately?  so  passionately  that  my  de- 
sire had  risen  above  my  reason,  carrying  with 
it  that  strange  conviction  that  by  the  sheer 
force  of  my  will  events  would  shape  them- 
selves— as  indeed  they  were  shaping — under 
my  inactive  hand?  Why?  I  could  not 
explain,  but  as  the  twilight  deepened  rapidly 
in  the  garden  I  saw  again  Malory's  grave, 
lean  face,  heard  his  half-sad,  half-happy 
comments,  was  pierced  by  the  pitiable  and 
unnecessary  tragedy  of  his  loneliness — 
Malory  away  in  France,  unconscious  of  the 
intensity  of  the  situation  created  around  him, 


HERITAGE  193 

without  his  knowledge  and  without  his  con- 
sent, by  a  woman  who  loved  him  and  a  man 
who,  I  suppose,  loved  him  too. 

It  was  at  that  moment,  when  I  had 
worked  myself  up  into  a  positive  exaltation, 
that  I  heard  a  sudden  angry  shout  and  a 
shot  from  a  revolver. 

I  awoke,  and  I  confess  that  before  rush- 
ing into  the  house  I  stood  for  a  dizzy  second 
while  a  thousand  impressions  wheeled  like  a 
flock  of  startled  birds  in  my  brain.  It  was 
over,  then?  Westmacott  was  dead,  I  was 
sure  of  that.  Would  the  mice,  two  miles 
away,  be  waltzing?  I  had  an  insane  desire 
to  run  over  and  look.  Westmacott  was 
dead;  then  I  had  killed  him,  I  was  his  mur- 
derer as  much  as  if  I  stood  in  Ruth's  place 
with  the  smoking  revolver  in  my  hand.  It 
was  over;  the  recent  tradition  of  war,  where 
life  was  cheap,  had  joined  with  Concha's 
legacy  for  the  fulfilment  of  my  purpose* 
What  a  heritage!  for  that  double  heritage, 
not  fate,  had  helped  me  out.  Blood,  war, 
and  I  were  fellow  conspirators. 

I  stood  for  a  second  only  before  I  burst 
open  the  door,  but  the  strength  of  my  im- 
pression was  already  so  powerfully  upon  me 


194  HERITAGE 

that  when  I  saw  Westmacott  by  the  fire 
holding  the  revolver  I  did  not  believe  my 
eyes.  When  I  say  I  did  not  believe  my 
eyes  I  mean  that  I  was  quite  soberly,  delib- 
erately persuaded  that  my  eyes  were  telling 
an  actual  falsehood  to  my  brain.  West- 
macott could  not  be  standing  by  the  fire;  he 
must  be  lying  somewhere  on  the  ground, 
huddled  and  lifeless.  I  removed  my  eyes 
from  the  false  Westmacott  standing  by  the 
fire,  and  sent  them  roving  over  the  floor  in 
search  of  that  other  Westmacott  from  whom 
life  had  flown. 

I  ran  my  eyes  up  and  down  the  cracks 
between  the  tiles  until  they  came  to  a  dark- 
ness, and  then,  running  them  upwards,  I 
reached  the  face  of  Ruth.  She  was  there, 
shrinking  as  she  must  suddenly  have  shrunk 
when  he  snatched  the  revolver  from  her.  In 
her  face  I  read  defeat,  reaction,  submission. 
She  had  struck  her  blow,  and  it  had  failed; 
and  she  and  I  were  together  beaten  and 
vanquished. 

I  knew  that  my  attempt  would  be  hope- 
less, but  a  great  desperation  seized  hold  of 
me,  and  I  cried  out,  absurdly,  miserably, — 

"There  are  other  methods." 


HERITAGE  195 

She  only  shook  her  head,  and,  pointing  at 
the  revolver,  said, — 

"It  kicked  in  my  hand." 

I  looked  across  the  room,  and  running  to 
the  fire  I  picked  up  some  bits  of  china  which 
had  fallen  in  the  grate;  I  tried  to  fit  them 
together,  repeating  sorrowfully, — 

"Look,  you  have  broken  a  plate,  you  have 
broken  a  plate  to  pieces." 


FOR  how  long  we  stood  gazing  at  those 
ironical  shards  I  do  not  know.  There  are 
moments  of  suspension  in  life  when  the 
whirling  mind  travels  at  so  great  a  rate  that 
everything  else  seems  stationary ;  so,  now, 
we  were  touched  into  immobility  while  our 
minds  flew  forward  into  space  and  time.  I 
cannot  say  what  the  others  found  in  that 
fourth  dimension  of  thought;  I,  personally, 
returned  to  earth  utterly  inarticulate,  with 
these  two  words  shaping  themselves  and 
singing  over  and  over  in  my  brain:  Futile 
creatures !  futile  creatures !  It  was  as  though 
some  little  mocking  demon  sat  astride  my 
nerve  cords,  drumming  his  heels,  and  chant- 
ing his  refrain.  I  could  have  shaken  myself 
like  a  dog  coming  out  of  water  to  shake  him 
off.  Then  I  became  aware  of  Westmacott's 
voice  speaking  at  an  immense  distance. 

He  must  have  been  speaking  for  some 
time  before  the  sound  pierced  through  to  my 
ears,  for  I  saw  Ruth  moving  in  obedience 

196 


HERITAGE  197 

to  his  voice  before  I  had  grasped  what  he 
was  saying.  Her  movement  made  the  same 
impression  upon  me  as  his  voice:  muffled, 
slow,  and  infinitely  remote;  she  crept,  rather 
than  she  walked,  and  when  she  raised  her 
hand  she  raised  it  with  such  torpid  and 
deliberate  effort  that  she  seemed  to  be  drag- 
ging it  upwards  with  some  heavy  weight 
attached.  As  for  her  feet,  they  positively 
stuck  to  the  ground.  Westmacott  said  some- 
thing more;  he  pointed.  She  turned,  still 
with  that  slow  laborious  deliberation,  and 
moved  like  a  shackled  ghost  from  the 
room. 

Westmacott  and  I  were  left,  and  we  were 
silent,  he  perhaps  from  choice,  I  certainly 
from  inability  to  speak.  I  think  now  that 
he  was  less  shattered  than  Ruth  or  me,  hav- 
ing played  a  more  negative  role;  he  had 
merely  stood  there  to  be  shot  at,  while  Ruth 
and  I  had  flung,  she  direct,  I  indirect  pas- 
sion into  the  shooting.  We  were  worn, 
spent,  exhausted,  he  had  his  forces  still  in- 
tact. An  absurd  phrase  came  into  my  mind, 
so  childish  that  I  hesitate  to  write  it  down: 
Which  would  you  rather  be,  the  shooter  or 
the  shootee?  and  presently  I  hit  on  the 


198  HERITAGE 

rhyme,    so   that    a   sing-song   began   in   my 
head: — 


"Which  would  you  rather  be, 
The  shooter  or  the  shootee?" 


and  still  Westmacott  stood  there  holding  the 
revolver,  and  I  stood  there  holding  the 
pieces  of  the  broken  plate,  and  all  the  while 
I  seemed  to  hear  the  corner-stones  of  my 
cherished  schemes  dropping  to  earth  like 
pieces  of  masonry  after  an  explosion.  We 
stood  quite  motionless.  Overhead  somebody 
was  moving  about.  Outside  it  was  nearly 
dark. 

Perception  was  beginning  to  return  to 
me,  bringing  in  its  train  a  sense  of  defeat. 
I  had  often  wondered  how  the  people  in  a 
play  or  in  a  story  continued  to  live  their 
lives  after  the  climax  which  parted  spectator 
and  actor  for  ever,  I  had  often  followed  them 
in  spirit,  come  down  to  breakfast  with  them 
next  morning,  so  to  speak,  producing  the 
situation  into  the  region  of  inevitable  anti- 
climax. Here  I  was,  then,  at  the  old  game, 
an  actor  myself.  I  supposed  that  the  play 
was  at  an  end,  and  that  this  was  the  return 


HERITAGE  199 

to  life.  That  the  play  should  end  happily  or 
unhappily,  was  an  accident  proper  to  the  play 
only;  all  that  was  certain,  all  that  was  in- 
evitable, was  that  life  must  be  gone  on  with 
after  the  play  was  over.  You  couldn't  stop; 
you  were  like  a  man  tied  on  to  the  back  of  a 
traction-engine,  willy-nilly  you  had  to  go  on 
walking,  walking,  walking.  The  dreariness 
of  it!  I  looked  at  the  pieces  of  broken  plate 
in  my  hand,  the  sum  total  of  all  that  passion, 
all  that  great  outburst  of  pent  emotion.  I 
threw  back  my  head,  and  laughed  long,  loud, 
and  bitterly. 

Westmacott  regarded  me  without  surprise, 
scarcely  with  interest.  He  appeared  cold  and 
quite  indifferent,  entirely  in  possession  of  his 
faculties.  I  grew  ashamed  under  his  dispas- 
sionate gaze,  my  laughter  ceased,  and  I  laid 
the  pieces  of  plate  on  the  table.  Then  it 
occurred  to  me  we  were  waiting  for  some- 
thing. The  movement  overhead  had  died 
away,  but  as  I  listened  I  heard  steps  upon 
the  stair,  several  sets  of  steps,  light  pattering 
steps  as  of  children,  and  heavier  steps,  as  of 
a  grown  person. 

Then  Westmacott  stirred;  he  went  across 
the  room  and  opened  the  door.  I  saw  Ruth 


200  HERITAGE 

standing  in  the  passage  with  her  children. 
She  was  hatless  as  she  had  arrived,  but  the 
glow  of  the  lamp,  hanging  suspended  from 
the  ceiling,  where  it  fell  upon  the  curve  of 
her  little  head,  drew  a  line  of  light  as 
upon  a  chestnut.  Westmacott  nodded  curtly, 
passed  out,  and  his  family  followed  him  in 
a  passive  and  mournful  procession. 

I  watched  them  go,  across  the  little  garden, 
through  the  swing-gate,  and  into  the  dusky 
fields  beyond.  They  seemed  to  me  infinitely 
gray,  infinitely  dreary,  infinitely  broken,  the 
personages  of  a  flat  and  faded  fresco.  All 
that  pulsating  passion  had  passed,  like  an 
allegory  of  life,  leaving  only  death  behind. 
Gone  was  the  vital  flame  from  the  human 
clay.  And  nothing  had  come  of  it,  nothing 
but  a  broken  plate.  What  ever  comes  of 
men's  efforts,  I  thought  bitterly?  so  little, 
that  we  ought  to  take  for  our  criterion  of 
success,  not  the  tangible  result,  but  the  in- 
tangible ardour  by  which  the  attempt  is 
prompted.  So  rarely  is  the  one  the  gauge 
of  the  other!  I  looked  again  at  the  little 
train  rapidly  disappearing  into  the  darkness, 
a  funeral  cortege,  carrying  with  it  the  corpse 
of  slain  rebellion.  I  saw  the  years  of  their 


HERITAGE  201 

future,  a  vista  so  stark,  so  arid,  that  I 
physically  recoiled  from  its  contemplation. 
How  hideous  would  be  the  existence  of  those 
children,  suffering  perpetually  from  a  con- 
straint they  could  not  explain,  a  constraint 
which  lacked  even  to  the  elements  of  terror, 
so  dead  a  thing  was  it,  in  which  terror,  a 
lively,  vivid  reality,  could  find  no  place. 
Death  and  stagnation  would  be  their  lot. 

The  darkness  of  the  fields  had  now  com- 
pletely swallowed  them  up,  but  I  still  stood 
looking  at  the  spot  Where  I  had  last  seen 
them,  and  saying  a  final  good-bye  to  the  tale 
that  place  had  unfolded  to  me.  This  time, 
I  was  certain,  no  sequel  was  still  to  come. 
On  the  morrow  I  should  leave  the  Penni- 
stans'  roof,  with  no  hope  that  an  echo  of  the 
strangely  cursed,  ill-fated,  unconscious  family 
would  ever  reach  me  again  in  the  outer  world. 

A  peace  so  profound  as  to  be  almost  un- 
natural had  settled  over  the  land,  one  or  two 
stars  had  come  out,  and  I  wondered  vaguely 
why  Amos  and  his  people  had  not  yet  re- 
turned home  from  work.  I  supposed  that 
they  were  making  the  most  of  a  fine  evening. 
The  Pennistans  would  accept  their  daugh- 
ter's defeat,  I  was  sure,  with  the  usual  stoic 


202  HERITAGE 

indifference  of  the  poor.  At  last  I  turned 
slowly  in  the  doorway,  a  great  melancholy 
soaking  like  dew  into  my  bones,  so  that  I 
fancied  I  felt  the  physical  ache. 

Now  I  have  but  the  one  concluding  inci- 
dent to  tell,  before  I  have  done  with  this 
portion  of  my  cumbersome,  disjointed  story, 
an  incident  which  has  since  appeared  to  me 
frightening  in  its  appositeness,  as  though  de- 
liberately planned  by  some  diabolically  fin- 
ished artist  as  a  rounding  of  the  whole. 
Malory  had  spoken  of  destiny  and  nature  as 
being  the  only  artists  of  any  humour  or  cour- 
age, and  upon  my  soul  I  am  tempted  to  agree 
with  him  when  I  think  over  the  events  of  that 
packed  evening,  of  which  I  was  the  sole  and 
baffled  spectator.  I  said  tlfis  incident  ap- 
peared to  me  frightening;  I  repeat  that 
statement,  for  I  can  conceive  of  no  situation 
more  frightening  than  for  a  man  to  find  him- 
self and  other  human  beings  shoved  hither 
and  thither  by  events  over  which  he  has  no 
control  whatsoever,  the  conduct  of  life  taken 
entirely  out  of  his  hands,  especially  a  man, 
like  me,  had  always  struggled  resentfully 
against  the  imposition  of  fate  on  free-will, 
but  never  more  so  than  in  the  past  few  weeks. 


HERITAGE  203 

Wherever  I  turned  that  night,  mockery  was 
there  ready  to  greet  me. 

I  went  again,  as  I  have  said,  into  the  house 
with  the  intention  of  waiting  in  the  kitchen 
on  Amos's  return.  In  this  small  plan  as  in 
my  larger  ones  I  was,  it  appeared,  to  be 
thwarted,  for  as  I  passed  down  the  narrow 
passage  I  noticed  that  the  door  of  old  Mrs. 
Pennistan's  room  was  open.  I  paused  at 
first  with  no  thought  of  alarm.  I  longed  to 
go  in,  and  to  tell  the  ancient  woman  of  the 
futile  suffering  she  had  brought  upon  her 
hapless  descendants.  I  longed  insanely  to 
shout  it  into  her  brain  and  to  see  remorse 
wake  to  life  in  her  faded  eyes.  As  I  stood 
near  her  door  she  grew  for  me  into  a  huge, 
portentous  figure,  she  and  her  love  for  Oliver 
Pennistan,  and  I  saw  her,  the  tiny  woman  I 
had  all  but  forgotten,  as  a  consciously  evil 
spirit,  a  malign  influence,  the  spring  from 
which  all  this  river  of  sorrow  had  flowed.  Then 
my  steps  were  drawn  nearer  and  nearer  to  the 
door,  till  I  stood  at  last  on  the  threshold,  look- 
ing for  the  first  time  into  the  room.  Some 
one,  presumably  the  now  invisible  servant, 
had  lit  the  two  candles  on  the  dressing-table, 
and  these  with  the  glow  of  the  fire  between 


204  HERITAGE 

the  bars  threw  over  the  room  a  fitful  light.  I 
had,  curiously  enough,  no  sense  of  intrusion; 
I  might  have  been  looking  at  a  mummy.  Yet 
I  should  have  remembered  that  the  occupant 
was  not  a  mummy,  for  the  familiar  smell  of 
the  chestnuts  had  greeted  me  even  in  the 
passage. 

She  was  sitting  in  her  usual  place  over  the 
fire,  her  back  turned  to  me,  and  a  black  shawl 
tightly  drawn  round  her  shrunken  shoulders. 
Again  I  was  struck  by  her  look  of  fragility. 
I  had  a  sudden  impulse  that  I  would  speak  to 
her,  and  would  try  to  draw  some  kind  of  fare- 
well from  her,  explaining  that  I  was  leaving 
the  house  the  next  day — though  whether  she 
had  ever  realised  my  presence  there  at  all  I 
very  much  doubted. 

As  I  went  forward  the  crackle  of  a  chest- 
nut broke  the  utter  stillness  of  the  room.  I 
waited  for  her  to  pick  it  out  of  the  grate  with 
the  tongs,  but  she  did  not  stir.  I  came  softly 
round  her  chair  and  stood  there,  waiting  for 
her  to  notice  me,  as  I  had  seen  the  Pennistans 
do  when  they  did  not  wish  to  startle  her. 
Indeed,  so  tiny  and  frail  was  she,  that  I 
thought  a  sudden  fright  might  shatter  her,  as 
too  loud  a  noise  will  kill  a  lark. 


HERITAGE  205 

I  looked  down  at  the  chestnuts  on  the  bar, 
and  then  I  saw  that  they  were  quite  black. 
I  bent  down.  They  were  burnt  black  and 
friable  as  cinders.  Sudden  panic  rushed  over 
me.  I  dropped  on  to  my  knees  and  stared  up 
into  the  old  woman's  fallen  face.  She  was 
dead. 


PART  III 


DURING  ten  years  my  story  remained  at  that, 
with  a  fictitious  appearance  of  completion. 
Then  I  received  a  letter  which,  without  fur- 
ther preamble,  I  here  transcribe: — 

".  .  .1  laugh  to  myself  when  I  think  of 
you  receiving  this  letter,  surely  the  most 
formidable  letter  ever  penned  by  mortal  man 
to  mortal  man,  a  letter  one  hundred  and  fifty 
pages  long;  who  ever  heard  of  such  a  thing? 
You  will  stare  dismayed  at  the  bundle,  and, 
having  forgotten  the  sight  of  my  writing,  will 
turn  to  the  end  for  the  signature;  which  find- 
ing, you  will  continue  to  stare  bewildered  at 
ithe  name  of  Malory  until  light  breaks  upon 
you  as  faint  and  feeble  as  a  winter  dawn. 
Let  me  help  you  by  reminding  you  of  Sam- 
piero  first,  and  of  Pennistans'  farm  later. 
You  see,  I  am  not  vain,  and  am  perfectly 
prepared  to  believe  that  the  little  set  of  your 

206 


HERITAGE  207 

fellow-men  among  whom  I  figured  had  en- 
tirely faded  from  your  mind. 

"Are  they  gradually  reviving  as  I  write? 
and  do  you,  as  they  one  by  one  sit  up  in  the 
coffins  to  which  you  had  prematurely  rele- 
gated them,  greet  them  with  a  smile?  Oh,  I 
don't  blame  you,  my  dear  fellow,  for  having 
put  us  away,  myself  included,  in  those  prema- 
ture graves.  I  should  have  done  as  much 
myself.  I  will  go  further:  I  should  have 
buried  the  lot  that  day  I  left  you  at  Sam- 
piero;  yes,  I  am  sure  I  should  not  have  dis- 
played your  energy  in  seeking  out  the  birds 
in  their  very  nest. 

"I  had  better  warn  you  at  the  start  that 
you  will  find  it  hard  to  believe  the  things  I 
am  going  to  tell  you.  You  know  already  of 
two  crises  in  the  lives  of  my  Hispano-Kentish 
yeomen,  two  crises  which  I  think  have  puzzled 
you  sufficiently — though  in  the  first  case  I 
suspect  that  you  were  more  clear-sighted  than 
I — but  in  this  third  crisis  with  which  I  deal 
you  will  probably  refuse  to  believe  altogether. 
I  do  not  pretend  to  explain  it  myself.  I  only 
know  that  it  happened,  and  therefore  that  it 
is  true.  Were  it  not  true,  I  would  not  dare 
to  foist  its  relation  on  any  living  man,  how- 


208  HERITAGE 

ever  credulous.  Human  ingenuity  could  not, 
however,  have  planned  this  sequel,  nor  human 
courage  have  invented  a  solution  at  once  so 
subtle  and  so  naif,  and  so  in  the  absurd  in- 
credulity of  my  tale  I  place  my  reliance  that 
it  will  carry  conviction. 

"Ours  has  been  a  queer  friendship,  but  one 
which  has  held  great  value  for  me;  I  think 
many  people  would  be  better  for  such  a 
friendship  in  their  lives.  Of  course,  to  make 
it  ideal,  I  should  never  have  seen  you ;  picked 
your  name  and  address  out  of  a  telephone 
directory,  and  written;  I  am  sure  you  would 
have  answered.  Then  I  should  have  had  no 
reserve  towards  you,  not  that  I  have  much 
now,  but  you  see  I  never  can  be  certain  that 
I  am  not  going  to  meet  you  in  a  train  or  in 
the  street,  when  my  ideally  unknown  corre- 
spondent and  I  could  pass  by  without  recog- 
nition, but  when  you  and  I  would  have  to 
stop,  and  shake  hands,  and  a  host  of  intimate, 
remembered  phrases  would  come  crowding  up 
to  people  our  silence.  I  dislike  such  embar- 
rassments. I  find  that  solitude,  like  leprosy, 
grows  upon  one  with  age,  for  I  observe  my- 
self physically  wincing  from  the  idea  that  I 


HERITAGE  209 

might  possibly  meet  you  as  I  have  said,  in  a 
train  or  in  the  street. 

"You  will  be  surprised,  after  this,  to  hear 
that  I  no  longer  live  alone.  But  I  shall  not 
give  you  the  pleasure  of  anticipating  the  end 
of  what  I  have  set  out  to  tell  you;  I  am 
going  to  roll  my  story  off  my  pen  for  my  own 
delectation  far  more  than  for  yours,  and  to 
see  whether  in  the  telling  I  cannot  chance 
upon  the  explanation  of  various  points  which 
are  still  obscure. 

"I  was  never  a  man  who  thought  life  sim- 
ple ;  I  had  not  a  five-hundred  word  vocabulary 
wherewith  I  explained  the  primitive  emotions 
of  birth,  hunger,  adolescence,  love,  and  death ; 
no,  life  was  always  difficult  and  involved  to 
me,  but  now  in  the  evening  of  my  own  ex- 
istence, serene  and  ordered  as  that  evening 
turns  out  to  be,  it  appears  as  a  labyrinth  be- 
yond conception,  with  not  one,  but  a  thousand 
centres  into  which  we  successively  stray.  Dif- 
ficult, difficult  and  heavy  to  shift  are  the 
blocks  of  which  our  mansion  is  built.  Nor 
am  I  now  speaking  of  social-political  creeds 
which  are  to  govern  the  world ;  I  am  speaking 
only  of  poor,  elementary  human  beings,  for, 


210  HERITAGE 

not  having  mastered  the  individual,  I  don't 
attempt  to  discuss  the  system  under  which  he 
lives.  Big  and  little  things  alike  go  to  our 
building;  and  if  it  was  the  war  which  first  put 
the  grace  of  humility  into  me,  it  is  the  sequel 
to  a  tale  of  plain  people  which  has  kept  it 
there. 

"Oh,  the  humility  of  me!  I  cross  my  arms 
over  my  eyes  and  bow  myself  down  to  the 
ground  like  a  Mussulman  at  prayer.  There's 
nothing  like  life  for  teaching  humility  to  a 
man,  nothing  like  life  for  shouting  Tool! 
fool!  fool!'  at  him  till  he  puts  his  hands  over 
his  ears.  It  buzzes  round  our  heads  like  a 
mosquito  inside  mosquito-curtains.  Humility 
isn't  the  gift  of  youth — thank  God — for  it 
takes  a  deal  of  buffeting  to  drive  it  into  us. 
The  war  should  have  taught  us  a  lesson  in 
humility;  a  wider  lesson,  I  mean,  than  the 
accident  of  defeat  or  victory,  efficiency  or  non- 
efficiency.  Let  us  ignore  those  superficial 
aspects  of  the  war.  What  we  are  concerned 
with,  is  the  underlying  forces,  the  courage, 
the  endurance,  the  loyalty,  the  development  of 
a  great  heart  by  little  mean  men;  all  this,  ab- 
stract but  undeniable,  unrivalled,  the  broadest 
river  of  human  excellence  that  ever  flowed. 


HERITAGE  211 

What  then?  Mistaken,  by  God!  wrong- 
headed!  an  immense  sacrifice  on  the  altar  of 
Truth  which  was  all  the  time  the  altar  of 
Untruth.  Doesn't  it  make  you  weep?  All 
the  gold  of  the  human  heart  poured  out,  like 
the  gold  of  the  common  coffers,  in  a  mistaken 
cause.  It's  barbaric;  it's  more  than  barbaric, 
-it's  pre-historic;  it's  going  back  to  the  Stone 
Age.  We  can't  say  these  things  now;  not 
yet;  not  from  lack  of  courage,  but  from  a 
sense  of  tact:  we're  living  in  the  wrong  cen- 
tury. It's  an  outrage  on  tact  to  say  to  your 
century  what  will  be  self-evident  to  the  next; 
therefore  we  continue  to  hate  our  enemy  and 
love  our  country;  mistaken  ideals  both. 

"There,  my  dear  fellow,  I  profoundly 
apologise;  if  I  oughtn't  to  say  these  things 
to  my  century  I  oughtn't  to  say  them  to  you 
either,  not  that  you  are  narrow  enough  to 
condemn  me,  but  because  I  shall  bore  you. 
I  promised  you,  too,  that  my  letter  was  to 
deal  with  our  little  corner  of  Kent,  and  on 
that  understanding  I  have  induced  you  to 
read  thus  far.  I  reflect,  moreover,  that  I 
have  no  right  to  speak  thus  and  thus  to  a 
man  who  has  lost  much  of  his  activity  in  his 
country's  service.  Mrs.  Pennistan  has  drawn 


212  HERITAGE 

me  a  touching  picture  of  you,  though  she 
hasn't  much  descriptive  talent,  has  she?  A 
motherly  soul,  pathetically  out  of  place  among 
that  untamed  brood.  Like  the  majority  of 
people,  she  lives  a  life  of  externals,  with  sen- 
timentality as  a  mild  substitute  for  the  more 
heroic  things,  and  it  has  been  her  misfortune 
for  her  lot  to  fall  among  people  who,  in  the 
critical  moments  of  their  lives,  allow  them- 
selves to  be  guided  by  internal  powers  of 
which  Mrs.  Pennistan  knows  nothing.  I 
said,  nothing.  Yet  is  such  true  placidity  pos- 
sible? When  you  see  a  person,  a  body,  mar- 
vellous casket  and  mask  of  secrets,  what  do 
you  think?  I  think,  there  stands  a  figure 
labelled  with  a  name,  but  he,  or  she,  has  lived 
a  certain  number  of  years;  that  is  to  say,  has 
suffered,  rejoiced,  loved,  been  afraid,  known 
pain;  owns  secrets,  some  dirty,  some  natural, 
some  shameful,  some  merely  pathetic;  and 
the  older  the  figure,  the  greater  my  wonder- 
ment and  my  admiration.  Mrs.  Pennistan, 
dull,  commonplace  woman,  once  gave  herself 
to  Amos;  was  then  that  not  an  immortal 
moment?  But  if  she  remembers  at  all,  she 
remembers  without  imagination;  she  can't 
touch  her  recollection  into  life. 


HERITAGE  213 

"And  she  dwells  among  hot,  smouldering 
natures  to  whom  the  life  of  the  spirit  is  real. 
She  doesn't  understand  them,  and  when  her 
daughter,  who  is  apparently  living  in  exter- 
nals likewise,  breaks  out  into  the  unexpected, 
she  is  perplexed,  dismayed,  aggrieved.  She 
doesn't  travel  on  parallel  lines  with  the  work- 
ings of  such  a  mind  as  her  daughter's  and 
consequently  has  to  catch  up  with  a  sudden 
leap  forward  which  disturbs  her  comfortable 
amble.  She  had  to  take  such  a  leap  when 
her  daughter  eloped,  and  another  similar  leap 
when  her  daughter  tried  to  shoot  her  spn-in- 
law.  Humorous,  isn't  it?  and  rather  sad.  I 
feel  less  for  Amos,  whose  instinct  is  more  in 
tune  with  Ruth's,  and  is  able  to  follow  quickly 
by  instinct  if  not  by  reason. 

"At  present  Mrs.  Pennistan's  mind  must 
be  in  chaos,  but  it  is  happy  chaos,  and  so  she 
accepts  it  without  disproportionate  bewilder- 
ment. Besides,  she  has  come  by  now  to  a 
fortunate  state  of  resignation,  in  which  she 
is  determined  to  be  surprised  at  nothing.  I 
have  questioned  her  on  the  subject.  She  is  so 
profoundly  unanalytical  that  I  had  some  diffi- 
culty in  getting  her  to  understand  at  all  what 
I  was  driving  at,  let  alone  getting  her  to 


214  HERITAGE 

answer  my  questions;  still,  what  she  told  me 
was,  in  substance,  this : — 

"  'Ruth  was  my  own  girl,  and  a  quiet  girl  at 
that,  but  Rawdon  isn't  my  boy,  and  we  all 
knew  that  Rawdon  was  queer  (this  is  the  ad- 
jective she  invariably  applies,  I  find,  to  any- 
thing a  little  bit  beyond  her) ,  so  we  got  into 
the  way  of  not  being  surprised  when  Rawdon 
did  queer  things.  Though,  I  must  say,  this 
beats  all.  After  ten  years!  .  .  .  And  he  no 
coward  either,  I'll  say  that  for  him.  He  was 
always  a  reckless  boy,  and  if  you'd  seen  the 
things  he  did  you'd  wonder,  like  I  do,  that  he 
ever  lived  to  grow  up.' 

"That,  of  course,  is  where  her  lack  of  imagi- 
nation leaves  her  so  much  at  fault.  She  has 
seen  Rawdon  climb  into  the  tops  of  spindly 
trees  after  jackdaws'  nests,  and  has  trembled 
lest  he  should  fall  and  break  his  head,  and 
has  marvelled  at  his  daring;  but  she  cannot 
imagine,  because  she  cannot  with  her  physical 
eyes  behold  the  torments  he  endured  of  late 
because  his  moral  imaginative  cowardice  was 
so  much  greater  than  his  physical  courage. 
She  cannot  understand  that  the  force  of  his 
imagination  was  such  as  to  drive  him  away 
from  all  that  he  most  desired.  She  cannot 


HERITAGE  215 

understand  this,  and  I  will  admit  that  for  us, 
who  are  phlegmatic  English  folk,  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  understand  also.  We  must  dismiss 
our  own  standards  first,  and  approach  the 
situation  with  an  unbiased  eye.  We  must,  in 
fact,  pull  prejudice  down  from  his  throne 
and  set  up  imagination  in  his  place.  We 
must  forget  our  training  and  our  national  con- 
ventions, if  we  wish  to  understand  something 
alien  to  ourselves,  something  alien,  but  not 
thereby  impossible  or,  believe  me,  uninter- 
esting. 

"I  look  back  over  what  I  have  already 
written,  and  am  bound  to  confess  that  I  have 
set  down  hitherto  the  incoherent  thoughts  that 
came  into  my  head,  simply  because  I  have 
been  afraid  of  tackling  my  settled  duty.  To 
deal  with  ten  years — for  it  is  now  ten  years 
since  the  period  of  our  correspondence  ceased 
with  the  ceasing  of  the  war — is  a  very  alarm- 
ing task  for  any  man  to  undertake.  I  could, 
of  course,  acquaint  you  in  a  dozen  lines  with 
the  salient  happenings  of  those  years.  But  it 
amuses  me  to  cast  them  into  the  form  of  a 
narrative,  and  you  will  forgive  me  if  I  should 
slip  into  elaborating  scenes  in  which  I  played 
no  part. 


216  HERITAGE 

"At  the  end  of  the  war,  I  must  tell  you,  I 
came  back  to  England  with  no  very  fixed 
ideas  as  to  my  future.  I  had  been  a  wan- 
derer, and,  I  say  it  with  shame,  a  dilettante 
all  my  life,  and  I  felt  that  my  restlessness 
had  not  yet  spent  itself.  I  had  hated,  oh,  how 
I  had  hated,  the  discipline  of  the  army!  I 
had  no  joy  in  war;  my  theories — I  can't  call 
them  principles,  for  they  were  things  too 
fluid  for  so  imposing  a  name — my  theories 
were  in  complete  disaccord  with  war,  and 
moreover  my  freedom,  for  the  love  of  which  I 
had  sacrificed  a  possible  home  and  children, 
was  now  taken  from  me,  and,  in  its  place,  fet- 
ters both  physical  and  moral  were  clamped 
upon  me.  As  my  feet  had  to  move  left! 
right !  left !  right !  so  my  poor  rebellious  tongue 
had  to  move  left!  right!  also.  And  yet,  there 
were  fine  moments  in  that  war;  one  learnt 
lessons,  and  one  watched  great  splendid  foun- 
tains leaping  upwards  out  of  that  sea  of  hu- 
manity. .  .  .  Then  the  end  came  when  I  was 
free,  and  could  make  a  bonfire  of  my  uniform. 
I  wondered  what  I  should  do  next,  and  as  I 
wondered  I  became  aware  of  two  things  pull- 
ing at  me;  one  thing  pulled  me  towards  the 
Weald  of  Kent,  and  the  other  pulled  me 


HERITAGE  217 

towards  the  Channel,  where  all  the  world 
would  lie  open  to  my  wandering.  I  decided 
that  the  two  were,  in  order,  compatible. 

"What  a  free  man  I  was!  I  enjoyed  pay- 
ing the  full  fare  for  my  ticket,  and  no  longer 
travelling  by  warrant.  You  and  I  both  know 
that  journey  to  Penshurst,  but  you  don't  know 
the  freedom  that  was  mine  in  those  fields;  I 
shouted,  I  ran,  I  jumped  the  brooks,  I  was 
like  a  lamb  in  May,  forgetful  of  my  middle- 
age.  And  then  I  was  suddenly  lonely,  want- 
ing, for  the  first  time  in  my  life,  a  companion 
to  share  my  light-heartedness.  I  wished  that 
you  were  with  me,  for  I  couldn't  think  of 
anybody  else.  Home  from  the  war;  free  in- 
deed, but  no  welcome  anywhere.  Not  even  a 
dog.  And  as  for  a  woman!  .  .  . 

"Westmacott  had  come  home,  and  I  knew 
that  he  had  found  his  children  grown,  and 
his  wife,  perhaps,  temporarily  happy  to  see 
him.  At  least  he  could  turn  to  watch  her 
beauty  as  she  slept.  ...  I  cursed  my  instinct 
for  following  people  into  their  private  lives, 
a  damnable  trick,  and  nothing  more  than  a 
trick,  but  one  which  made  me  lower  my  eyes 
in  shame  when  next  I  met  them.  Peeping 
through  keyholes.  I  had  done  it  all  my  life. 


218  HERITAGE 

Well,  if  anybody  peeped  through  my  keyhole, 
there  wouldn't  be  much  to  see. 

"How  queerly  things  work  out  sometimes, 
for  no  sooner  had  I  emerged  from  the  fields 
on  to  the  cross-roads,  where  the  finger-post 
says  'Edenbridge,  Leigh,  Cowden,'  still 
wrapped  in  my  loneliness  as  in  a  cloak,  I  came 
upon  Mrs.  Pennistan  walking  slowly  up  and 
down,  waiting,  I  presumed,  for  Amos.  At 
the  sight  of  me  she  stopped  and  stared,  till 
we  simultaneously  cried  one  another's  names. 
I  was  filled  with  real  warm  gladness  on  see- 
ing her  there  unchanged,  unchangeable,  and 
I  went  forward  with  my  hands  outstretched 
to  clasp  her  fat,  soft  hands — do  you  remem- 
ber her  hands?  they  spoke  of  innumerable 
kneadings  of  dough,  and  she  had  no  knuckles, 
only  dimples  where  the  knuckles  should  have 
been.  And  then,  before  I  knew  what  had 
happened,  that  good  woman's  arms  were 
round  my  neck  and  her  soft,  jolly  face  was 
against  mine,  and  she  kissed  me  and  I  kissed 
her,  and  I  swear  there  were  tears  in  her  eyes, 
which,  for  that  matter,  she  didn't  trouble  to 
conceal. 

"Presently  Amos  came  along.  I  had  in- 
tended returning  to  London  that  night,  but 


HERITAGE  219 

they  would  hear  nothing  of  it,  and  I  found 
myself  supping  as  of  old  in  their  happy 
kitchen,  and  going  upstairs  later  to  that  bare 
little  room  which  had  once  been  mine  and 
had  since  been  yours.  It  is  a  real  satisfaction 
to  me  that  you  should  be  as  familiar  with 
these  surroundings  as  I  am  myself,  for  you 
have,  as  you  read,  the  same  picture  as  I  have 
as  I  write,  and  this  harmony  we  could  never 
achieve  were  I  telling  you  of  places  and  faces 
you  had  never  seen. 

"We  talked,  naturally,  of  you,  for  after 
the  manner  of  old  friends  we  travelled  from 
one  to  the  other  of  persons  we  had  known. 
The  sons,  who  were  there  solemnly  munch- 
ing, lent  a  certain  constraint  to  the  evening. 
And  I  missed  so  poignantly,  so  unexpectedly, 
the  figure  of  the  old  woman  by  the  fire.  I 
had  not  realised  until  then  what  a  prominent 
figure  it  had  been,  although  so  tiny  and  so 
silent,  bent  over  the  eternal  chestnuts,  the 
great-great  grandmother  of  the  little  West- 
macotts.  Will  you  smile  if  I  tell  you  that  I 
took  the  diary  up  to  bed  with  me,  and 
read  myself  again  into  the  underworld  of 
Spain? 

"Was  it  you,  by  the  way,  that  drew  a  char- 


220  HERITAGE 

coal  portrait  of  me  over  the  wash-stand  in 
my  room? 

"I  got  up  and  dressed  the  next  morning 
still  uncertain  as  to  whether  I  should  or 
should  not  go  over  to  Westmacotts'.  I  do 
not  exactly  know  why  I  was  uncertain,  but 
perhaps  my  loneliness  on  the  previous  day 
had  more  to  do  with  it  than  my  self -offered 
pretext,  that  my  acquaintance  with  Ruth  had 
better  be  left  where  it  was  at  our  last  meet- 
ing. Remember,  I  had  not  seen  her  since  she 
stood  distraught  but  resolute  in  the  cowshed 
with  the  Hunter's  moon  as  a  halo  behind  her 
head.  What  could  one  say  to  people  in  greet- 
ing when  one's  last  words  had  been  full  of 
dark  mystery  and  of  things  which  don't  come 
very  often  to  the  surface  of  life?  In  a  word, 
I  was  afraid.  Afraid  of  embarrassment, 
afraid  of  the  comfort  of  her  home,  afraid  of 
her.  Afraid  of  my  own  self  as  a  companion 
through  lonely  years  afterwards.  I  dressed 
very  slowly  because  I  wanted  to  put  off  the 
inevitable  moment  of  making  up  my  mind. 
And  after  all  it  was  Mrs.  Pennistan  who 
made  it  up  for  me,  for  such  was  her  surprise 
when  I  mentioned  catching  a  train  which 


HERITAGE  221 

would  certainly  leave  me  no  time  for  the  visit, 
that  I  said  I  would  go. 

"I  realised  then  that  I  was  glad.  When  I 
was  a  boy  and  couldn't  make  up  my  mind 
whether  I  wanted  to  do  a  thing  or  not,  I 
used  to  toss  a  coin,  not  necessarily  abiding  by 
the  coin's  decision,  but  my  own  predominant 
feeling  of  relief  or  disappointment.  I  found 
the  system  invaluable.  In  this  case  Mrs.  Pen- 
nistan  had  spun  herself  as  a  coin  for  me. 

"Westmacott,  I  knew,  would  be  out.  Would 
Ruth  be  out,  too?  and  my  problem  thus  re- 
solved by,  as  it  were,  another  spin  of  the 
coin?  She  was  not  out;  she  was  in  her 
kitchen  rolling  a  white  paste  with  a  rolling- 
pin,  the  sleeves  of  her  blue  linen  dress  turned 
back,  and  as  she  rolled  she  sang  to  the  baby 
which  lay  in  a  low  cradle  in  the  corner.  The 
baby  lay  on  its  back  waving  a  piece  of  red 
coral  which  it  occasionally  chewed.  I  stood 
for  quite  a  long  time  in  the  doorway  watching 
them,  and  then  Ruth  looked  up  and  saw  me. 

"I  suppose  I  had  remembered  her  blush  as 
the  most  vivid  thing  about  her,  for  I  had 
waited  there  fully  expecting  her  to  look  up 
and  colour  as  she  always  did  when  surprised 
in  any  way,  but  instead  of  this  she  stood  there 


222  HERITAGE 

gazing  at  me  with  the  colour  faded  entirely 
from  her  face.  She  stood  holding  the  rolling- 
pin,  as  white  as  the  flour  upon  her  hands  and 
arms.  The  strong  light  of  the  window  was 
upon  her.  Red  geraniums  were  in  the  win- 
dow. The  strident  voice  of  a  canary  broke 
our  stillness. 

"  'Ruth/  I  said,  'aren't  you  glad  to  see 
me?' 

"I  went  forward  into  the  kitchen,  standing 
close  to  her  by  the  table,  and  light  was  all 
around  us,  light,  and  the  song  of  the  bird. 
Everything  was  light,  white,  and  dazzling;  a 
flood  of  light,  and  bright  colours.  Revela- 
tion, like  an  archangel,  was  in  that  room. 

"She  asked,— 

"  'Where  have  you  come  from?' 

"  'From  your  father's  house.' 

"  'You're  living  there?' 

"'Only  for  to-day.' 

"'And  then  you're  going  .    .    .  ?* 

"  'Away.' 

"'Away?' 

"  'Yes.' 

"Tor  good?' 

"'To  travel  .    .    .' 

"I  saw  her  face,  and  her  beauty  began  to 


HERITAGE  223 

swim  in  front  of  my  eyes,  and  a  roaring  began 
in  my  ears  like  a  man  who  is  breathing  chloro- 
form. Swimming,  swimming,  all  the  room  and 
the  light,  and  I  heard  my  own  voice  as  I  had 
never  heard  it  before,— 

'  'Ruth!  Ruth!  you  must  come  with  me.' 

" 'Come  with  you?' 

'Yes,  now,  at  once.  Before  your  hus- 
band comes  back.  Get  your  things.  I  give 
you  five  minutes.' 

"She  cried,- 

"  'Oh,  but  the  baby?' 

"  'I'll  look  after  it  while  you  go  upstairs.' 
'  'No,  no,'  she  said,  '  not  now;  afterwards?' 

"I  understood. 

"  'Take  it  with  you.' 

"  'But,  my  dear,  I've  three  children!' 

"The  divinity  was  vanishing  from  the  room, 
the  sunlight  grew  flat  and  cold.  We  stared 
at  one  another.  I  heard  Westmacott's  voice 
out  in  the  yard.  I  said  desperately, — 

"'Let  me  tell  him!' 
'  'Oh,  no!'  she  cried  shrinking,  'no,  no,  no.' 

"  'You're  afraid,'  I  taunted  her. 

"  'What  if  I  am?    Please  go.' 

"'Alone?' 

"  'Please,  please  go.' 


II 


"You  want  to  know  if  I  went?  I  did,  and  in 
the  yard  I  met  Westmacott,  who  discussed 
with  me  the  prospects  of  the  season.  He  was 
particularly  affable,  and  I  did  my  utmost  not 
to  appear  absent-minded.  I  suppose  that  I 
succeeded,  for  his  affability  increased,  culmi- 
nating in  an  invitation  to  join  him  in  a  glass 
of  ale  within  the  house.  I  was  dismayed,  and 
protested  that  I  had  no  time,  also — quite  un- 
truthfully— that  since  the  war  I  had  given 
up  drink  of  all  kinds.  He  urged  me. 

"  'You'll  not  refuse  to  taste  my  wife's 
cider?' 

"I  thought  that  I  cried  out, — 

"  'Man  alive,  I  come  straight  from  implor- 
ing your  wife  to  come  away  with  me,'  but  as 
his  expression  remained  the  same,  and  neither 
glazed  into  horror  nor  blazed  into  fury,  I 
suppose  that  the  words,  though  they  screamed 
in  my  head,  never  materialised  on  my  lips. 

"I  was  helpless.  He  led  me  back,  odious 
and  hospitable,  into  the  kitchen  where  Ruth 


HERITAGE  225 

still  stood  rhythmically  rolling  the  dough. 
The  sun  had  gone  behind  a  cloud,  and  the 
room,  which  had  been  so  dazzling  with  its 
colours  and  its  clarity,  was  dim,  even  to  the 
red  of  the  geraniums,  even  to  the  glow  under 
the  skin  of  Ruth.  Dead,  I  thought,  dead, 
dead. 

"Westmacott  stood  outside,  stamping  the 
clay  from  his  boots,  and  calling  to  his  wife 
for  cider.  I  winced  from  his  heartiness,  and 
from  the  tragic  absurdity  of  my  position.  If 
only  tragedy  could  be  our  lot,  we  should  at 
least  enjoy  the  consolation  of  the  heroic,  but 
in  the  comic  tragedy  to  which  Providence  so 
delights  in  exposing  us,  there  is  no  consolation. 
I  was  thankful  that  Westmacott  did  not  know 
what  a  fool  he  was  successfully  making  of  me. 

"Ruth  took  down  from  the  dresser  an 
earthenware  jug,  and  went  through  into  the 
little  back  hall  of  the  place.  I  watched  her 
through  the  door  which  she  had  left  open. 
She  filled  the  jug  at  a  great  wooden  barrel; 
the  golden  cider  streamed  out  from  the  tap, 
and  she  held  the  jug  with  a  precision  and  a 
steadiness  of  hand  that  made  me  marvel.  Re- 
turning, she  set  it  with  two  glasses  on  the 
table. 


226  HERITAGE 

'This  is  my  own  brewing,'  she  said  to  me. 

"I  thought  that  the  cider  must  surely  spill 
from  my  glass  as  I  raised  it  from  the  table, 
or  that  it  must  bubble  and  choke  in  my 
throat  as  I  drank  with  her  eyes  upon  me. 
I  felt  trapped  and  prisoned,  but  in  West- 
macott's  face  there  was  nothing  sinister,  no 
trace  of  suspicion.  He  was  not  playing  a 
game  with  me.  Perversely  enough,  I  should 
have  preferred  an  outburst  of  fury  on  his 
part,  to  have  felt  his  fist  in  my  face,  and  to 
roll  with  him,  body  grappling  with  body,  on 
the  floor.  But  this  could  not  be,  and  I  must 
sit,  drinking  cider,  between  those  two,  a  hus- 
band and  wife  whom  the  flash  of  a  revolver 
had  so  nearly  separated  not  many  weeks 
beforehand,  a  revolver  fired  in  anger  and 
hatred,  and  in  a  desire  for  freedom;  I  must 
sit  there,  near  a  woman  between  whom  and 
myself  unforgettable  words  had  been  sud- 
denly illuminatingly  spoken.  I  laughed; 
Westmacott  had  just  made  some  remark  to 
which  my  laugh  came  as  an  inappropriate 
answer;  he  looked  a  little  surprised,  and  I 
was  hunting  about  for  some  phrase  to  cover 
my  lapse,  when  Ruth  said, — 

"  'Here  are  the  boys.' 


HERITAGE  227 

"They  came  in  whistling,  but  fell  silent  as 
they  saw  me,  and  took  their  caps  off  awk- 
wardly. They  were  good-looking  little  boys 
— but  I  forget:  you've  seen  them.  West- 
macott  glanced  at  them  with  obvious  pride. 
Ruth  moved  with  her  former  steadiness  to 
the  cupboard  to  cut  them  each  a  chunk  of 
bread  liberally  spread  with  jam;  she  pushed 
their  chairs  close  up  to  the  table,  and  ran 
her  fingers  through  their  rough  mops  of 
hair.  They  began  to  eat  solidly.  West- 
macott  winked  at  me. 

"  'There's  a  mother  for  you,'  he  said. 

"I  could  make  no  reply  to  his  hideous 
jocularity;  if  I  had  spoken,  I  should  have 
screamed. 

"I  felt  that  I  should  never  escape,  that 
the  situation  would  last  for  ever.  I  was, 
naturally  enough,  not  very  clear  in  my  mind 
just  then,  but  already  I  seemed  to  see  my 
recent  scene  with  Ruth  as  a  sunlit  peak 
bursting  out  of  the  dreariness  and  blindness 
of  days,  as  brief  as  the  tick  of  a  clock,  but 
as  vibrant  as  a  trumpet-call,  while  the  pres- 
ent scene  was  long,  interminable,  flat  as  a 
level  plain.  Yes,  that  was  my  impression: 
the  peak  and  the  plain.  I  longed  to  get 


228  HERITAGE 

away,  that  I  might  dwell  at  my  leisure  upon 
that  moment  full  of  wonder.  I  bitterly  re- 
sented my  bondage.  I  wanted  to  go  away 
by  myself  to  some  solitary  corner  where  I 
might  sit  and  brood  for  hours  over  the  one 
moment  in  which,  after  years  of  mere  vege- 
tation, I  could  tell  myself  that  I  had  truly 
lived.  I  felt  that  every  minute  by  which 
my  stay  in  that  kitchen  was  prolonged,  was 
making  of  the  place  a  thing  of  nightmare, 
instead  of  the  enchanted  chamber  it  actually 
was,  and  this  also  I  resented.  Why  could 
not  I  have  come,  lived  my  brief  spell,  and 
gone  with  an  untarnished  treasure  impris- 
oned for  ever  within  my  heart?  Why  should 
perfection  be  marred  by  the  clumsiness  of  a 
farmer's  hospitality? 

"Nor  was  this  all.  Creeping  over  me 
came  again  the  humiliating  sensation  which 
I  had  more  than  once  experienced  in  the 
presence  of  Ruth  and  Westmacott,  the  sen- 
sation that  they  were  alien  to  me,  bound 
together  by  some  tie  more  mysterious  than 
mere  cousinship,  a  tie  which,  I  believed,  held 
them  joined  in  spite  of  the  hatred  that 
existed  between  them.  I  won't  go  into  this 
now.  It  is  a  mystery  which  lies  at  the  very 


HERITAGE  229 

root  of  their  strange  relationship.  I  do  not 
suppose  that  Ruth  was  conscious  of  it — she 
was,  after  all,  an  essentially  unanalytical  and 
primitive  creature — but  it  drove  her  now  to 
a  manifestation  as  typical  of  her  in  par- 
ticular as  it  was  of  all  women  in  general. 

"She  set  herself  deliberately  to  increase  my 
misery  and  discomfort  by  every  trick  within 
her  power.  She  must  have  been  aware  of 
what  I  was  enduring,  and  you  would  have 
thought,  however  indifferent  to  me  in  the 
emotional  sense,  that  she  would  have  tried, 
in  ordinary  human  pity  and  charity,  to  help 
me  to  escape  as  soon  as  possible  from  my 
wretched  position,  and  to  make  that  position 
less  wretched  while  it  still  lasted.  You  would 
have  thought  this.  Any  man  would  have 
thought  it.  But  apparently  women  are  dif- 
ferent. 

"She  took,  then,  my  misery  and  played 
with  it,  setting  herself  to  intensify  it  by  every 
ruse  at  her  disposal.  She  contrived,  with 
diabolical  subtlety,  to  separate  us  into  two 
groups,  one  consisting  of  herself,  her  hus- 
band, and  her  children,  the  other  consisting 
of  me,  isolated  and  alone.  To  this  day  I  do 
not  know  whether  she  wanted  to  punish  me 


230  HERITAGE 

for  my  former  temerity,  or  whether  she  was 
simply  obeying  some  obscure  feminine  in- 
stinct. In  any  case,  she  succeeded.  I  had 
never  felt  myself  such  an  intruder.  Even 
the  resemblance  between  husband  and  wife, 
the  curious,  intangible  resemblance  of  race 
and  family  in  their  dark  looks,  rose  up  and 
jeered  at  me.  'We  understand  one  another,' 
something  seemed  to  say,  'and  we  are  laugh- 
ing together  at  your  expense.' 

"I  realised  then  that  the  calm  with  which 
she  had  received  me,  and  had  drawn  my 
cider,  the  matter-of-fact  way  in  which  she 
had  told  me  it  was  of  her  own  brewing, 
were  all  part  of  her  scheme,  as  was  her 
present  conversation,  standing  by  the  table, 
and  her  occasional  demonstrations  of  affec- 
tion towards  her  boys.  You  will  remember 
perhaps  that  I  once  told  you  of  a  walk  she 
and  I  had  taken  to  Penshurst.  Well,  I 
dimly  felt  that  her  behaviour  on  that  occa- 
sion and  upon  this  were  first-cousins.  I 
don't  know  why  I  felt  this;  I  only  record 
it  for  you  without  comment. 

"So  she  stood  there  talking,  a  hard  devil 
behind  all  her  commonplace  words.  I  hated 
her;  I  wished  myself  dead.  My  one  con- 


HERITAGE  231 

solation,  that  Westmacott  did  not  know  what 
a  fool  he  was  making  of  me,  was  gone,  since 
Ruth  was  making  of  me  a  much  bigger  fool, 
and  was  doing  it  in  all  consciousness.  How 
I  hated  her!  and  at  the  same  time,  through 
her  hatefulness,  she  seemed  to  me  more  than 
ever  desirable.  Westmacott  knew  nothing 
of  what  had  gone  before,  but,  sensitive  as 
he  was  underneath  his  brutality,  with  the 
unmistakable  sensitiveness  of  the  Latin,  he 
was,  I  think,  aware  of  some  atmospheric 
presence  in  the  room.  At  any  rate,  he 
realised  the  devilish  attraction  of  his  wife, 
and  in  his  spontaneous  foreign  way  he  put 
out  his  hand  to  touch  hers.  An  English 
farmer!  I  nearly  laughed  again.  When  he 
did  this,  she  sat  down  on  the  arm  of  his 
chair,  and,  putting  her  arms  round  his  neck, 
laid  her  cheek  against  his  hair,  with  her  eyes 
on  me  all  the  while.  Then,  as  though  she 
had  released  some  lever  by  her  action,  he 
turned  within  her  arms,  and  kissed  her 
savagely. 

"The  next  thing  I  knew  was  that  I  was 
walking  at  an  extraordinary  pace  across  the 
fields,  gasping  in  the  air,  and  that  strong 
shudders  like  the  shudders  of  a  fever  were 


232  HERITAGE 

running  down  my  frame.  I  am  not  really 
very  clear  as  to  how  I  spent  the  rest  of 
that  day,  or  of  the  days  that  followed.  Do 
you  know  that  familiar  nightmare  in  which 
you  roll  a  tiny  ball  no  bigger  than  a  car- 
tridge-shot between  your  finger  and  thumb, 
till  it  grows  and  grows  into  an  immense  ball 
that  overwhelms  you?  So  through  a  night- 
mare haze  I  rolled  the  memory  of  that  hor- 
rible little  scene  into  a  tight  ball,  till  I  could 
see  neither  beyond  nor  above  it,  but  all  my 
horizon  was  obscured  by  the  distended  pellet 
in  my  brain.  And  during  all  this  time  I 
moved  about  the  world  like  a  man  in  full 
possession  of  his  senses,  making  my  dispo- 
sitions for  a  long  absence  abroad,  talking  to 
my  banker  out  of  the  depths  of  a  leather 
arm-chair,  buying  my  tickets  from  Thomas 
Cook,  directing  the  packing  of  my  luggage, 
and,  so  far  as  I  know,  neither  my  banker 
nor  Cook's  clerk  nor  the  club  servant  realised 
that  anything  was  amiss  with  me. 

"I  had  only  one  desire:  to  get  away,  to 
think.  I  was  as  impatient  for  solitude  as 
the  thirsty  man  is  for  water.  I  resented 
every  one  in  my  surroundings  and  my  delay 
in  London  much  as  I  had  resented  West- 


HERITAGE  233 

macott  and  my  delay  in  the  kitchen.  Until 
I  could  get  away,  I  banished  all  thought 
from  my  mind;  only,  as  I  tell  you,  the  scene 
in  the  kitchen  remained  whirling  and  whirl- 
ing beyond  my  control. 

"Finally  I  escaped  from  England,  and  as 
I  lay  sleepless,  buffeted  all  night  in  the 
train,  one  thought  persisted  like  music  in 
my  brain,  *  To-morrow  I  shall  be  alone,  I 
shall  be  rid  of  nightmare,  I  shall  be  able 
to  dwell  luxuriously  upon  the  magical  mo- 
ment, and  all  that  it  means,  all  that  it 
entails.  Yes!  I  shall  be  alone  with  it,  for 
weeks,  months,  years  if  I  like.  I  shall  no 
longer  be  forced  to  grant  undue  proportion 
to  the  nightmare;  until  now  it  has  mace 
black  night  of  my  days,  but  to-morrow  it 
will  recede  like  a  fog  before  the  sun,  and 
I  shall  dwell  in  the  crystal  light  of  the 
mountain-tops.' 

"My  destination  was — I  wonder  if  you 
have  guessed  it  already? — Sampiero.  I  knew 
that  there  I  was  certain  of  peace,  hospitality, 
familiar  rooms.  Besides,  it  was  there  that 
I  had  spoken  to  you  for  so  many  hours  of 
the  opening  chapters  of  this  story,  and  I 
had  a  fancy  that  if  I  took  my  dreamings  up 


234  HERITAGE 

to  the  clump  of  pines,  the  shadows  of  those 
earlier  chapters  might  come,  re-evoked  to 
brush  like  soft  birds  against  my  cheek.  I 
had  planned  to  go  up  to  the  clump  of  pines 
on  my  first  evening  after  dinner.  My  dear 
fellow,  do  not  be  offended  when  I  tell  you 
that  as  I  arrived  by  that  absurd  mountain 
railway  at  Sampiero,  I  was  seized  by  a  sud- 
den panic  that  some  desire  for  rest  and  peace 
might  have  brought  you,  like  myself,  to  the 
same  old  haunt.  I  suppose  that  I  was  in 
an  excitable  state  of  mind  already,  for  by 
the  time  I  reached  our  old  lodging-house  I 
was  in  a  fever  and  a  passion  of  certainty 
that  I  should  find  you  there  before  me. 
Signora  Tagliagambe  was  at  the  door  to 
welcome  me,  but  I  rushed  at  her  with  in- 
quiries as  to  whether  I  was  or  was  not  her 
only  guest.  She  stared  at  me  with  obvious 
concern  for  my  reason.  There  were  no  other 
guests.  I  had  my  former  room,  also  the 
sitting  room  to  myself.  I  should  be  com- 
pletely undisturbed. 

"I  recovered  myself  then,  realising  that  I 
had  been  a  fool,  as  I  dare  say  you  are  think- 
ing me  at  this  moment.  A  delicious  peace 
came  stealing  over  me,  the  peace  of  things 


HERITAGE  235 

suspended.  I  was  half  tempted  to  give 
myself  the  luxury  of  putting  off  my  first 
visit  to  the  stone-pines  until  the  following 
day.  But  the  evening  fell  in  such  perfec- 
tion that  I  wandered  out,  much  as  you  and 
I  have  often  wandered  out  to  sit  there  in 
silence,  sucking  at  our  pipes;  in  the  days,  I 
mean,  before  I  asked  you  that  memorable 
question  about  the  Weald  of  Kent. 

"So  there  I  was,  at  length,  at  peace,  and 
I  stretched  myself  out  on  the  ground  beneath 
the  pines,  pulling  idly  at  a  tuft  of  wild 
thyme,  and  rubbing  it  between  my  hands 
till  the  whole  evening  was  filled  with  its 
curious  aromatic  scent,  that  came  at  me  in 
gusts  like  a  tropical  evening  comes  at  one 
in  gusts  of  warmth.  I  had  not  yet  begun 
to  think,  for,  knowing  that  the  moment  when 
thought  first  consciously  began  to  well  up 
in  my  spirit  would  take  its  place  in  the 
perspective  of  my  life  not  far  short  of  that 
other  moment  on  whose  sacredness  I  scarcely 
dared  to  dwell,  I  put  it  off,  even  now,  when 
it  had  become  inevitable,  torturing  myself 
with  the  Epicureanism  of  my  refinement.  I 
was  thirsty,  thirsty,  thirsty,  and  though  the 
water  stood  there,  sparkling  and  clear,  I  still 


236  HERITAGE 

refused  myself  the  comfort  of  stretching  out 
my  hand. 

"And  then  it  came.  Slowly  and  from  afar, 
almost  like  pain  running  obscurely  and  ex- 
quisitely down  my  limbs,  reflection  returned 
to  me  like  light  out  of  darkness.  I  lay  there 
absolutely  motionless,  while  in  my  head  music 
began  to  play,  and  I  was  transported  to 
palaces  where  the  fountains  rose  in  jets  of 
living  water.  Light  crept  all  round  me, 
and  music,  music  ...  a  great  chorus,  now, 
singing  in  unison;  swelling  and  bursting 
music,  swelling  and  bursting  light,  louder  and 
louder,  brighter  and  more  dazzling;  a  deaf- 
ening crash  of  music,  a  blinding  vision  of 
light. 

"I  stood  at  last  on  the  sunlit  peak. 

"All  around  me,  but  infinitely  below, 
stretched  the  valleys  and  plains  of  darkness 
where  I  had  dragged  out  my  interminable 
days.  I  looked  down  upon  them  from  my 
height,  knowing  that  I  should  never  return. 
I  knew  that  I  now  stood  aloft,  at  liberty  to 
examine  the  truth  which  had  come  to  me, 
turning  it  over  and  over  in  my  hands  like 
a  jewel,  playing  with  it,  luxuriating  in  its 
possession.  It  was  to  be  mine,  to  take  at 


HERITAGE  237 

will  from  the  casket  of  my  mind,  or  to 
return  there  when  other,  prosaic  matters 
claimed  my  attention.  But,  whether  I  left 
it  or  whether  I  took  it  out,  I  should  bear 
it  with  hie  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  and 
death  alone  could  wrench  me  from  its  con- 
templation. 

"What  a  lunatic  you  must  think  me  after 
this  rhapsody!  What!  you  will  say,  does  the 
man  really  mean  that  he  wouldn't  exchange 
the  recollection  of  a  moment  for  the  living, 
material  presence  of  the  woman  concerned? 
Well,  it  is  very  natural  that  you  should 
think  me  a  lunatic,  but  have  patience;  take 
into  consideration  my  life,  which  has  been 
lived,  as  you  know,  alone;  always  in  unusual 
places,  with  no  one  near  my  heart.  Living, 
material  presences  come  to  have  compara- 
tively little  significance  after  twenty  or  thirty 
years  of  solitude.  Try  it,  and  you  will  see. 
One  drifts  into  a  more  visionary  world,  peo- 
pled by  shadowy  and  ideal  forms;  memories 
assume  incredible  proportions  and  acquire 
an  unbelievable  value;  one  browses  off  them 
like  a  camel  off  his  hump.  Do  you  begin  to 
understand  now  that  this  great,  shining, 
resplendent  moment  should  rush  in  to  fill  a 


238  HERITAGE 

mind  so  dependent  on  the  life  unreal?  One 
must  have  something,  you  see,  and  if  one 
can't  have  human  love  one  must  fall  back 
upon  imagination.  Hence  the  romantic  souls 
of  spinsters.  .  .  . 

"And  hence,  I  might  say,  a  great  many 
other  things  which  practical  men  barely  ac- 
knowledge. I  find  myself  straying  off  down 
paths  of  thought  which  may  lead  me  into 
swamps  of  digression.  Hence  religion,  hence 
poetry,  hence  art,  hence  love  itself — the 
spiritual  side  of  love.  All  these  things,  un- 
practical, inconvenient,  unimportant  things, 
all  sprung  from  a  craving  in  man's  nature! 
A  craving  for  what?  Hasn't  he  been  given 
strength,  health,  bodily  well-being,  hunger 
and  thirst,  fellow-men  to  fight,  and  fists  to 
fight  them  with?  What  more  does  the 
creature  want?  He  wants  a  thing  called 
Beauty,  but  what  it  is  he  can't  tell  you,  and 
what  he  wants  to  do  with  it  when  he's  got 
it  he  can't  tell  you;  but  he  wants  it.  Some- 
thing that  he  calls  his  soul  wants  it.  A 
desire  to  worship.  .  .  .  Beauty,  a  purely 
arbitrary  thing.  All  men  strive  after  it, 
some  men  so  little  that  they  are  themselves 
unconscious  of  the  desire,  other  men  so  pas- 


HERITAGE  239 

sionately  that  they  give  up  their  whole  lives 
to  its  pursuit;  and  all  the  graded  differences 
come  in  between. 

"Here  am  I,  then,  a  man  of  irregular  and 
spasmodic  occupation,  an  unsatisfactory,  use- 
less member  of  society,  I'll  admit,  useless, 
but  quite  harmless;  an  educated  man,  what 
you  would  call  an  intellectual,  not  endowed 
with  a  brain  of  the  good,  sound  type,  but 
with  a  rambling,  untidy  sort  of  brain  that 
is  a  curse  to  himself  and  a  blessing  to 
nobody.  Here  am  I,  without  one  respon- 
sibility in  the  world,  with  nothing  to  do 
unless  I  go  out  and  forage  for  it,  living  alone 
with  books,  dabbling  in  this  and  that,  and 
necessarily  thrown  for  a  certain  number  of 
hours  each  day  on  my  own  resources.  You 
cannot  wonder  that  my  life  of  the  imagina- 
tion— as  I  will  call  it — becomes  of  supreme 
importance  to  me  as  my  only  companion.  It 
had  been  a  singularly  blank  life,  so  blank 
that  when  I  went  out  for  walks  alone  I  used 
to  fall  back  on  repeating  verse  aloud,  so 
you  see  it  was  a  life  of  books,  and  man  wants 
more  than  that.  He  wants  something  that 
shall  be  at  once  ideal  and  personal.  There 
is  only  one  thing  which  fulfils  those  two  con- 


240  HERITAGE 

ditions:  Woman.  But,  you  will  say,  if  there's 
no  woman  in  a  man's  life  he  has  only  him- 
self to  blame.  You're  right;  I  don't  know 
why  I  never  set  out  to  find  myself  a  woman, 
perhaps  because  I  was  too  hard  to  please, 
perhaps  because  I  knew  myself  to  be  too 
fickle  and  restless.  You  used  to  laugh  at 
me  when  I  said  this.  Of  course,  I  don't 
pretend  that  there  haven't  been  incidents  in 
my  life;  but  they  never  lasted,  never  satis- 
fied me  for  long;  they  weren't  even  good  to 
think  about  afterwards.  Anyway,  there  I 
was:  free,  but  lonely. 

"And  now  I  had  got  this  new,  precious, 
incredible  thing  to  think  over.  I  am  afraid 
to  tell  you  how  long  I  stayed  at  Sampiero, 
doing  nothing,  lapped  in  my  thoughts  as  in 
a  bath  of  warm  water.  My  conversation 
with  Ruth  had  been  brief,  and  I  knew  every 
word  of  it  by  heart;  my  hour  started  from 
when  I  had  come  up  to  her  house  and  had 
stolen  surreptitiously  to  the  doorway  to  take 
her  unawares,  and  had  stood  there  with  a 
smile  on  my  lips,  waiting  for  her  to  look  up. 
I  saw  again  the  light  and  the  flowers  and 
the  baby  in  the  cradle.  I  felt  again  the 
swimming  in  my  head  as  I  looked,  for  the 


HERITAGE  241 

first  time,  it  seemed,  into  the  beauty  of  her 
face.  I  heard  again  my  own  voice  saying, 
'Ruth!  Ruth!  you  must  come  with  me.' 

"But  I  told  you  all  that  before;  why  do 
I  repeat  it?  Because  I  lived  through  it  all 
an  infinitude  of  times  myself.  I  thought  I 
couldn't  exhaust  the  richness  of  my  treasure. 
Nor  could  I,  but  after  a  while  I  found  that 
my  perfect  contentment  was  being  gradually 
replaced  by  a  hunger  for  something  more;  I 
was  human;  the  imagination  wasn't  enough. 

"I  began  to  want  Ruth,  Ruth  herself, 
warm  and  living,  and  when  I  made  this  dis- 
covery I  took  a  step  I  had  long  since  pre- 
pared in  my  mind,  foreseeing  the  day  when 
dissatisfaction  would  overcome  me:  I  left 
Sampiero  and  joined  a  party  that  was  going 
into  Central  Africa  after  ivory. 


Ill 


"THE  change  in  my  existence  was  two-fold; 
I  was  now  busy  instead  of  idle,  and  in  my 
thoughts  I  was  unhappy  instead  of  happy. 
At  moments,  indeed,  I  was  so  acutely  un- 
happy that  I  welcomed  desperately  the 
preparations  of  our  expedition,  which  gave 
me  plenty  to  do.  I  looked  back  to  my 
months  at  Sampiero  as  one  of  the  best 
periods  of  my  life.  One  of  my  new  com- 
panions asked  me  what  I  had  been  doing 
since  the  end  of  the  war.  I  replied, — 

16  'I've  been  on  a  honeymoon  with  a 
thought,'  and  he  stared  at  me  as  though  I 
were  mad,  and  never  quite  trusted  me  for 
the  rest  of  the  expedition. 

"I  was  busy  before  we  started,  and  that 
took  my  mind  off  my  own  affairs,  but  on 
the  ship  I  was  again  unoccupied;  I  used  to 
lean  my  arms  on  the  rail  and  stare  down 
into  the  churning  water,  and  feel  my  heart 
being  eaten  out  as  though  by  scores  of  rats 
with  pointed  teeth.  I  longed,  I  longed 
madly,  for  Ruth.  In  those  days  I  used  to 

242 


HERITAGE  243 

think  of  her  as  a  person,  not  as  an  abstrac- 
tion; I  wondered  whether  she  was  unhappy 
or  fairly  contented;  I  tried  to  draw  up  in 
my  own  mind  a  scheme  of  her  relations  with 
Westmacott.  But  I  couldn't;  I  couldn't  face 
that  just  then,  I  put  it  off.  I  knew  that 
sooner  or  later  I  must  think  the  whole  thing 
out,  but  when  one  has  a  score  or  more  years 
in  front  of  one,  one  can  afford  to  delay. 

"Apart  from  this,  I  enjoyed  my  African 
experience;  the  men  I  was  with  were  all 
good,  dull  fellows;  I  didn't  make  friends 
with  any  of  them,  beyond  the  comradeship 
of  every  day.  What  I  enjoyed  were  the 
days  of  hunting,  and  the  nights  of  waiting 
under  such  stars  as  I'd  never  seen;  well,  I 
suppose  it  is  all  lying  there  now  as  I  write, 
just  as  I  used  to  think  of  the  untroubled 
Weald  lying  there  spread  under  an  English 
sky.  It's  funny  to  think  of  places  you've 
been  to,  existing  just  the  same  when  you 
aren't  there.  Yes,  I  liked  Africa,  and  I 
tried  to  live  in  the  present,  but  when  the 
expedition  was  over,  and  I  found  myself 
landed  alone  at  Naples,  I  realised  with  a 
shock  that  I  had  only  succeeded  in  putting 
ten  months  of  my  life  away  behind  me,  and 


244  HERITAGE 

that  an  unknown  quantity  of  years  stretched 
out  in  front. 

"I  was  sitting  outside  my  hotel  after 
luncheon,  smoking,  and  looking  over  that 
most  obvious  and  panoramic  of  bays.  I 
hated  Naples,  I  hated  Italy;  I  thought  it  a 
blatant,  superficial  country,  with  no  mystery, 
therefore  no  charm.  I  had  almost  made  up 
my  mind  to  take  ship  for  Gibraltar,  when 
a  voice  beside  me  said, — 

"  'You  look  pretty  blue.' 

"I  turned  round  and  saw  a  long,  leggy 
creature  stretched  out  on  a  deck-chair  beside 
me;  he  was  squinting  up  at  me  from  under 
a  straw  hat. 

"  'I  feel  it,'  I  replied;  'about  as  blue  as 
that  sea.' 

'What  are  you  going  to  do?'  he  went  on. 

"I  told  him  that  I  had  just  been  thinking 
of  going  to  Gibraltar. 

"  'And  what'll  you  do  when  you  get  there?' 

'"I  hadn't  thought  of  that,'  I   answered. 

"  'On  a  holiday?'  he  inquired. 

"'No,'  I  said,  'I  don't  work;  I  lead  an 
aimless  sort  of  life.' 

"  'Great  mistake,'  said  he. 

"I  agreed. 


HERITAGE  245 

"  'How  did  it  come  about?'  he  asked. 

"Somehow  I  found  myself  telling  him. 

"  'When  I  was  young — that  is  to  say, 
after  I  had  left  Oxford— I  thought  I'd  like 
to  see  the  world,  so  I  started;  I  travelled, 
stopping  sometimes  for  six  months  or  two  if 
I  liked  the  place.  Then  when  I  got  tired 
of  that,  I  took  to  specialising  in  different 
subjects,  giving  a  year,  two  years,  three,  to 
each.  So  I  drifted  on  till  the  war,  and  here 
I  am.' 

'  'I  see,'  he  said.    'And  now  you're  bored.' 

"  'Yes/  I  said,  adding,  'and  worse.' 

"He  made  no  comment  on  that;  I  don't 
know  whether  he  heard.  He  said  presently, 
in  the  same  tone  as  he  would  have  used  to 
remark  on  current  politics,— 

'  'I'm  going  to  Ephesus  to-morrow,  you'd 
better  come  with  me.  My  name's  Mac- 
Pherson.' 

"  'All  right,'  I  said,  'I'll  come.  My  name's 
Malory.  What  are  you  going  to  do  at 
Ephesus?' 

"He  replied,  'Excavate.' 

"That  will  tell  you  what  MacPherson  was 
like;  an  eccentric,  laconic  sort  of  fellow;  he 


246  HERITAGE 

never  argued,  he  just  made  proposals,  and, 
whether  they  were  accepted  or  declined,  nod- 
ded briefly  in  acquiescence  without  further 
discussion.  For  a  long  time  I  thought  that 
I  should  never  get  any  further  with  him, 
then  gradually  I  began  to  find  him  out:  a 
grim,  sardonic  soul,  with  only  one  passion 
in  life,  if  I  can  give  the  name  of  passion 
to  a  determination  so  cold  and  unshakable; 
I  mean  his  passion  for  excavation.  I  have 
seen  him  labouring  for  hours  under  the  sun, 
dusty  and  indistinguishable  from  the  ruins 
among  which  he  worked,  apparently  tireless 
and  thirstless;  I  have  seen  him  labour  like 
a  man  under  the  domination  of  a  great 
inspiration,  of  a  force  such  as  drives  fanatics 
to  cut  their  own  heads  and  cover  their  own 
backs  with  wales  from  the  rod,  but  I  have 
never  heard  an  expression  of  delight  or 
enthusiasm,  or  even  of  satisfaction,  escape 
his  lips  at  the  result  of  his  labours.  Scien- 
tists and  archaeologists  came  to  him  with 
respect,  invited  his  opinion,  paid  him  com- 
pliments evidently  sincere;  he  listened  in 
total  indifference,  neither  disclaiming  nor 
acknowledging,  only  waiting  for  them  to  have 
done  that  he  might  get  back  to  his  work. 


HERITAGE  247 

"Such  was  the  man  with  whom  I  now 
lived,  and  you  may  imagine  that  I  was  often 
puzzled  to  know  what  had  prompted  his 
original  invitation  to  me.  I  could,  of  course, 
have  asked  him,  but  I  didn't.  He  took  my 
presence  absolutely  as  a  matter  of  course, 
made  use  of  me, — at  times  I  had  to  work 
like  a  navvy, — never  gave  me  his  confidence, 
never  expected  mine.  It  was  a  queer  asso- 
ciation. We  lived  in  a  native  house  not  far 
from  the  site  of  the  temple  on  the  hill  above 
the  ramshackle  Turkish  village  of  Ayasalouk, 
and  one  servant,  an  Albanian,  did  our  house- 
work for  us,  washed  our  clothes,  and  pre- 
pared our  meals.  We  shared  a  sitting-room, 
but  our  bedrooms  were  separate;  it  was  a 
four-roomed  house.  Occasionally,  about  once 
a  month,  MacPherson  would  go  down  into 
Smyrna  and  return  next  day  with  provisions, 
cigarettes,  and  a  stock  of  tools  and  clothes, 
and  sometimes  an  English  paper. 

"  He  let  me  off  on  Sundays,  ungraciously, 
grudgingly,  if  silence  can  be  grudging.  I 
insisted  upon  it.  At  Pennistans'  I  had  had 
a  half-holiday  on  Sunday,  and  at  Ephesus 
I  would  have  it  too.  But  here  my  hours  of 
freedom  were  spent  in  loneliness.  Lonely  I 


248  HERITAGE 

would  tramp  off  to  the  banks  of  the  Cayster, 
and,  standing  among  tall  bulrushes  and  bril- 
liant iris,  would  fish  dreamily  for  mullet,  till 
the  kingfishers  swept  back,  reassured,  to  the 
stream  and  joined  me  in  my  fishing. 

Jam  varias  pelagi  volucres,  et  quce  Asia 

circum 
Dulcibus  in  stagnis  rimantur  prata  Caystri. 

You  will  admit,  I  think,  that  the  quotation 
is  singularly  apposite.  Or,  as  with  Ruth  I 
had  climbed  the  hills  above  the  Weald, 
I  would  climb  alone  the  heights  of  Mount 
Coressus,  where  the  golden  angelica  surged 
about  me,  or  the  heights  of  Prion,  which 
showed  me,  across  the  plain  of  Ephesus,  the 
flatter  plain  of  deep  blue  sea,  broken  by  the 
summits  of  Samos — the  very  sea,  the  very 
Samos,  where  Polycrates  flung  forth  his  ring 
in  defiance  of  the  gods. 

"A  certain  number  of  travellers  came  to 
Ephesus,  whom  MacPherson  regarded  with 
a  patient  disdain,  but  whom  I  welcomed  as 
messengers  of  the  outside  world.  I  wanted 
to  question  them,  but  they  were  always  so 
eager  to  question  me,  making  me  into  a  sort 
of  guide,  and  inveigling  me  into  doing  them 
the  honours  of  the  place.  This  used  to  annoy 


HERITAGE  249 

MacPherson,  though  he  never  said  anything; 
I  think  he  felt  it  as  a  sort  of  desecration. 
I  could  see  him  watching  me  with  disap- 
proval, standing  there  among  the  columns 
in  his  dust-coloured  shirt  and  trousers  and 
sombrero  hat,  leaning  his  hands  on  the  han- 
dle of  his  pick-axe,  a  hard,  muscular  man, 
thin  and  wiry  as  an  Australian  bush-settler. 
The  tourists  questioned  me  about  him  and 
about  our  life,  but  I  noticed  they  rarely 
approached  him,  or,  if  they  did  so  once,  they 
did  not  do  so  twice.  After  talking  to  me, 
they  would  move  away,  decide — thankfully 
— among  themselves  that  I  could  not  be 
offered  a  tip,  and  finally  would  stroll  off  in 
the  direction  of  our  little  house.  Here  I 
had  dug  a  little  garden  in  imitation  of  the 
Kentish  cottages  I  knew  so  well;  just  a  few 
narrow  beds  in  front  of  the  house,  where  I 
had  collected  the  many  wild  flowers  that 
grew  on  the  neighbouring  hills.  MacPherson 
took  an  odd,  unexpected  interest  in  my 
garden.  He  brought  me  contributions,  rare 
orchids  and  cyclamen  which  my  eyes  had 
missed,  brought  them  to  me  gravely,  carry- 
ing them  cupped  in  his  hands  with  as  much 
tenderness  as  a  child  carries  a  nest  full  of 


250  HERITAGE 

eggs.  He  stood  by  me  silently  watching 
when  I  put  them  in  with  my  trowel  in  the 
cool  of  the  evening.  Of  course  we  got  ter- 
ribly burnt  up  in  the  summer,  but  in  the 
spring  my  garden  was  always  merry,  and, 
if  it  added  to  my  homesickness,  it  also 
helped  to  palliate  it. 

"MacPherson  had  evidently  never  thought 
of  making  the  place  less  dreary  than  it 
naturally  was;  I  have  no  great  idea  of  com- 
fort myself,  but  I  can't  live  without  flowers, 
and  so  my  instinct,  which  began  in  a  garden, 
produced  itself  into  other  improvements;  I 
bought  a  mongrel  puppy  off  a  shepherd,  and 
its  jolly  little  bark  of  welcome  used  to  cheer 
our  home-coming  in  the  evening;  then  I 
made  MacPherson  bring  back  some  chickens 
from  Smyrna,  a  suggestion  which  seemed 
to  horrify  him,  but  to  which  he  made  no 
objection;  finally  I  grew  some  flowers  in 
pots  and  stood  them  in  the  windows.  Oh,  I 
won't  disguise  my  real  purpose  from  you: 
I  was  trying  to  make  that  rickety  Turkish 
house  as  like  a  Kentish  cottage  as  possible. 
I  even  paved  a  garden  path — MacPherson 
examined  every  stone  with  the  minutest  care 
before  I  was  allowed  to  lay  it  down — and 


HERITAGE  251 

finished  it  off  with  a  swing-gate.  Then  it 
struck  me  that  a  swing-gate  in  mid-hillside 
looked  merely  absurd,  so  I  contrived  a 
square  of  wooden  fencing  all  round  our  little 
property.  Lastly,  I  hung  a  horse-shoe, 
which  was  a  mule-shoe  really,  over  the  door. 

"I  tell  you,  the  more  the  resemblance 
grew,  the  more  and  the  less  homesick  I  got. 
It  was  at  once  a  pain  and  a  consolation. 
There  were  times  when  I  almost  regretted 
my  enterprise,  and  wanted  to  tear  up  the 
path,  destroy  the  garden,  strangle  the  puppy, 
and  throw  away  the  flowers,  letting  the 
whole  place  return  to  the  bleakness  from 
which  I  had  rescued  it.  I  wanted  to  do  this, 
because  my  efforts  had  been  too  successful, 
and  as  a  consequence  I  expected  to  see  Ruth 
appear  in  that  doorway,  white  sewing  in  her 
hands,  and  a  smile  of  welcome  to  me — to  me! 
— in  her  eyes.  I  have  often  come  home 
pleasantly  tired  from  my  day's  work,  fully 
though  sub-consciously  confident  that  I 
should  see  her  as  I  have  described.  .  .  . 

"That  garden  of  mine  had  many  narrow 
escapes.  But  I  kept  it,  and  I  went  on  with 
my  pretence,  perfecting  it  here  and  there: 
I  got  a  kennel  for  the  puppy,  and  I  got 


252  HERITAGE 

some  doves  that  hung  in  a  wicker-cage  be- 
side the  door.  At  last  the  counterfeit  struck 
MacPherson. 

"  'Why,'  he  said,  stopping  one  evening,  'it 
looks  quite  English.' 

"  T)o  you  think  so?'  I  replied. 

"  'Yes,'  he  said,  'but  I  tell  you  what,  those 
flowers  are  wrong.  An  English  cottage 
garden  doesn't  have  orchids;  it  has  mjgnor- 
ette.  How  can  we  get  some  mignonette?' 

'  'I  might  write  home  for  some,'  I  said 
slowly. 

"It  was  true:  I  might  write  home  for 
some.  To  whom?  Mrs.  Pennistan  would 
send  it  me.  Then  it  would  have  a  senti- 
mental value  which  it  would  lack  coming 
from  a  seedsman.  But  I  knew  quite  well 
that  it  was  not  to  Mrs.  Pennistan  that  I 
intended  to  write. 

"After  dinner  I  brought  out  a  little  fold- 
ing table  and  set  it  by  the  door.  Mac- 
Pherson was  there  already,  playing  Patience 
as  was  his  invariable  habit. 

"'Going  to  write  letters?'  he  asked,  seeing 
my  inkpot. 

"  'Yes,'  I  said,  'I'm  going  to  write  for  the 
mignonette.' 


HERITAGE  253 

"I  headed  my  letter,  'Ephesus,'  an  address 
which  always  gave  me  satisfaction;  not  that 
I  often  had  an  opportunity  of  writing  it. 

"  'My  DEAR  RUTH, — I  am  writing  to  you  from  a  hill- 
side in  Turkey  to  ask  you  if  you  will  send  me  some 
seeds  of  mignonette  for  my  garden;  it  is  very  easy  to 
grow,  and  I  think  would  do  well  in  this  soil.  You  would 
laugh  if  you  could  see  my  house,  it  is  not  like  anything 
you  have  ever  seen  before.  Please  send  me  the  mignon- 
ette soon,  and  a  line  with  it  to  tell  me  if  you  are  well.' 


"I  addressed  it,  'Mrs.  Rawdon  Westmacott, 
Vale  Farm,  Weald,  Kent,  England,'  and  there 
it  lay  on  my  table  grinning  and  mocking  at 
me,  knowing  that  it  would  presently  cross  the 
threshold  I  was  dying  to  cross,  and  be  taken 
in  the  hands  I  was  dying  to  hold  again. 

"  'Done?'  said  MacPherson.  'Where  have 
you  ordered  the  seeds  from?  Carter's?' 

'  'No,'  I  said,  'I've  asked  a  friend  for 
them,'  and  some  odd  impulse  made  me  show 
him  the  address  on  the  envelope. 

"He  read  it,  nodded,  and  said  nothing.  I 
was  disappointed,  though  really  I  don't  know 
what  I  should  have  answered  had  he  ques- 
tioned me. 


254  HERITAGE 

"After  that  my  days  were  filled  with  one 
constant  thought.  I  calculated  the  nearest 
date,  and  then  coaxed  myself  into  the  belief 
that  there  would  be  a  delay  after  that  date 
had  come  and  gone;  a  long  delay;  perhaps 
a  month.  So  many  things  might  happen, 
Ruth  might  not  be  able  to  get  the  seed,  she 
might  put  off  writing,  she  might  simply  send 
the  seed  with  no  covering  letter  at  all.  This 
last  thought  was  unendurable.  It  grew,  too, 
in  my  mind:  people  of  Ruth's  upbringing 
and  education  didn't  like  writing  letters,  they 
didn't  like  perpetuating  their  opinions  so  ir- 
revocably as  ink  on  paper  perpetuated  them, 
and  anyway  they  always  had  a  conviction 
that  the  letter  once  written,  would  not  ar- 
rive, especially  at  an  unheard-of-place  like 
Ephesus.  It  was  difficult  enough  to  imagine 
the  safe  transit  of  a  letter  from  one  English 
county  to  another,  but  that  a  letter  posted 
in  the  Weald  of  Kent  should  arrive  in  due 
course  at  a  place  out  of  the  Bible  was 
unthinkable.  ...  I  became  daily  more  per- 
suaded that  she  would  not  write,  and  daily 
my  gloom  deepened.  MacPherson  noticed  it. 

"  'Feel  ill?'  he  asked. 

"  'No,  thanks,'  I  said,  annoyed. 


HERITAGE  255 

"  'You're  not  starting  cholera?'  he  sug- 
gested suspiciously. 

"'No,  I  tell  you;  I'm  perfectly  well.' 

"  'Glad  of  that,'  he  said,  but  I  told  myself 
peevishly  that  his  gladness  was  based  entirely 
on  considerations  of  his  own  convenience. 

"Ten  days  passed;  a  fortnight;  three 
weeks;  I  was  in  despair.  Then  one  morn- 
ing, as  I  came  out  of  our  door  with  a  basket 
in  my  hand  to  pick  up  a  couple  of  eggs  for 
breakfast,  I  saw  a  large  magenta  patch  down 
below,  on  the  hilly  pathway  which  led  from 
our  house  to  the  village.  This,  I  knew, 
must  be  the  old  negro  woman  who  brought 
our  rare  letters.  I  watched  her;  the  morn- 
ing was  slightly  misty,  for  it  was  very  early, 
not  long  after  sunrise,  and  I  saw  her  black 
face  emerge  from  the  plum-coloured  mashlak 
she  wore.  I  started  off  to  meet  her.  She 
came  toiling  up  the  hill,  panting  and  blow- 
ing, for  she  was  enormously  fat,  but  an 
indestructibly  good-humoured  grin  parted 
her  lips  over  her  gleaming  teeth,  and  sud- 
denly I  fancied  a  grotesque  resemblance  to 
Mrs.  Pennistan,  and  I  laughed  aloud  as 
though  a  good  omen  had  come  to  speed  me. 

"I  came  up  to  her.     Her  black  skin  was 


256  HERITAGE 

glistening  with  moisture,  and  her  vast  body 
rocked  and  swayed  about  inside  her  gaudy 
magenta  wrapper;  I  suspected  it  of  being 
her  only  covering.  Still,  I  almost  loved  her 
as  with  a  chatter  of  Turkish  she  produced  a 
great  black  arm  and  hand  out  of  the  folds  of 
her  mashlak — a  fat  black  hand  so  ludicrously 
like  Mrs.  Pennistan's  fat  white  one,  holding  a 
little  packet  which  she  tendered  to  me. 

"I  summoned  my  Turkish  to  thank  her; 
this  called  forth  a  deluge  of  conversation  on 
her  part,  with  much  shining  of  teeth  and  clat- 
tering of  bangles,  but  I  shook  my  head  re- 
gretfully, and  she,  heaving  her  huge  shoulders 
and  displaying  her  palms  in  equivalent  regret, 
turned  herself  round  and  started  on  the  easier 
downward  road  to  Ayasalouk.  Could  Ruth 
but  have  seen  this  voluminous  magenta  emis- 
sary! for  the  packet  I  held  was  indeed  from 
Ruth  and  bore  the  Weald  postmark. 

"I  sat  down  by  the  roadside  to  open  it. 
The  seeds  were  there,  and  a  letter,  written 
in  a  round,  Board-school  hand,  accompanied 
them.  I  was  suddenly  unable  to  read;  it 
was  the  first  word,  remember,  that  had  come 
to  me  from  her  since  that  memorable  day. 
I  was  more  than  moved;  I  was  shaken,  like 
a  tree  in  the  wind. 


HERITAGE  257 

"I  read:— 

"  '  Vale  Farm,  Weald, 

"'15  IV.  22. 

1 '  DEAR  MR.  MALORY — Yours  to  hand,  and  enclosed 
please  find  mignonette  seeds  as  requested.  I  hope 
they  will  do  well  in  your  garden.  Our  garden  was 
baked  hard  in  the  drowt  last  summer,  but  hope  we 
will  have  more  favourable  weather  this  year.  My 
husband  and  the  boys  are  well,  and  send  their  respects. 
Well,  must  stop  now  as  have  no  more  news.  Hoping 
this  finds  you  well,  I  am, 

"  *  Yours  obediently, 

"'R.  WESTMACOTT.'  " 

"That  was  her  letter — I  have  it  here  to 
copy,  old  and  worn  and  torn — and  in  its 
stiff  conventionality,  its  pathetically  absurd 
phraseology,  it  seemed  to  tear  my  heart  into 
little  fluttering  ribbons.  Anything  less  like 
her  I  couldn't  conceive,  yet  she  was  inde- 
scribably revived  to  me;  I  saw  her  bending, 
square-elbowed,  over  that  bit  of  paper,  hesi- 
tating when  she  came  to  the  word  'drought,' 
deciding  wrong,  tipping  up  the  octagonal, 
penny  bottle  of  ink  which  hadn't  much  ink 
left  in  it;  I  saw  her  getting  the  seeds,  mak- 
ing up  the  parcel,  copying  'Ephesus'  con- 
scientiously from  my  letter.  You  may  think 
me  sentimental;  it  was  the  only  tangible 
thing  I  had  of  hers. 


258  HERITAGE 

"MacPherson  met  me  at  the  top  of  the 
path. 

"'Letters?'  he  said. 

"  'Not  for  you,  but  I've  got  the  mignon- 
ette seed.' 

"He  looked  puzzled. 

"'The  what?'  Heavens!  the  man  has  for- 
gotten! 'Oh,  yes,  I  remember,'  he  said; 
'let's  go  and  put  it  in.' 

"I  had  got  ready  a  prepared  seed-bed, 
where  I  think  I  had  broken  up  every  lump 
of  earth,  however  insignificant,  with  my  own 
fingers,  and  here  I  sowed  Ruth's  packet  of 
seed.  I  sowed  it  with  the  solemnity  of  a 
priest  sacrificing  at  the  altar.  MacPherson 
looked  on  as  was  his  wont,  unaware  of  any- 
thing special  in  the  occasion,  and  rather 
impatient  to  get  to  breakfast. 

"In  a  few  weeks'  time  the  plants  began 
to  show;  I  watered  them,  and  cherished 
them,  thinned  them  out,  put  wire  round 
them,  treated  them  as  never  was  hardy  an- 
nual treated  before.  Soon  the  fragrant 
thing  was  all  round  our  doorstep.  I  felt 
like  a  prisoner  tending  the  plant  between 
the  flag-stones  of  his  prison,  or  like  Isabella 
with  her  pot  of  Basil.  I  laughed  at  myself, 
but  still  I  continued  my  cult,  and  the  nightly 


HERITAGE  259 

watering  of  the  flowers  throughout  the  hot 
summer  became  to  me  a  species  of  ritual. 

"You  used  to  call  me  a  pagan;  that's  as 
it  may  be,  but  anyway  I  dedicated  my  whole 
garden  to  Ruth,  growing  my  flowers  in  her 
honour,  enlarging  my  plot,  planting  the  hill- 
side outside  the  fence  with  broom  and  wild 
things,  till  the  whole  place  was  rich  and 
blooming.  This  labour  gave  me  the  greatest 
satisfaction.  My  dreadful  hungry  craving 
for  her  living  presence  was  momentarily 
lulled  and  I  returned  to  that  happier  frame 
of  mind  when,  as  I  described  to  you,  I  was 
content  to  live  in  the  imagination.  I  could 
set  her  up  now  as  a  kind  of  idealised  vision 
of  all  that  was  beautiful,  all  that  was  de- 
sirable. She  was  the  deity  of  my  garden, 
almost  the  deity  of  the  great  temple  where 
I  laboured.  I  should  think  MacPherson 
would  have  half  killed  me  had  I  hinted  this 
to  him. 

"I  was  happy  again,  and  in  the  next 
spring  I  got  Ruth  to  send  me  out  some 
more  seeds  from  her  own  garden.  With 
them  came  another  stilted  little  note,  but  this 
time  there  was  a  postscript:  was  I  ever 
coming  back  to  England?  That  disturbed 
me  terribly;  I  knew  it  contained  no  double 


260  HERITAGE 

meaning,  for  I  knew  perfectly  well  that  Ruth 
would  never  leave  her  children  to  come  away 
with  me,  but  at  the  same  time  it  stirred  up 
my  sleeping  desire  to  see  England  again.  I 
analysed  this,  and  found  that  I  didn't  in  the 
least  want  to  see  England;  I  only  wanted 
to  see  Ruth.  This  frightened  and  distressed 
me;  I  had  been  so  calm,  so  comparatively 
happy,  and  here  a  few  idle  words  had  thrown 
me  into  a  state  of  emotional  confusion.  The 
ruins  seemed  odious  to  me  that  day,  my 
garden  seemed  a  mockery,  and  in  the  evening 
I  said  to  MacPherson, — 

"  'I  am  afraid  I  must  go  away.' 

"He  said,  'Oh?'  less  in  a  tone  of  dismay 
than  of  polite  inquiry,  and,  as  usual,  of 
acceptance. 

f  'I  am  getting  restless  here,'  I  said,  'but 
if  I  go  and  stretch  my  limbs  a  bit  I  shall 
be  better;  I  will  come  back.' 

"  'All  right,'  he  answered,  as  though  there 
were  no  more  to  be  said  on  the  matter. 

"  'That  is,  if  you  want  me,'  I  added,  pro- 
voked. 

"  'Naturally  I  shall  be  glad  to  see  you 
whenever  you  choose  to  come  back,'  he  said, 
without  a  trace  of  emotion  or  cordiality  in 
his  tone. 


IV 


"BEFORE  I  left  I  made  arrangements  with  the 
Albanian  to  look  after  my  garden  during 
my  absence;  much  as  I  hated  leaving  it  to 
other  hands  I  felt  that  I  must  get  away  or 
I  should  begin  to  scream  upon  the  hills  of 
Ephesus.  I  went  down  to  Smyrna  without 
much  idea  of  what  I  should  do  after  that, 
but  when  I  got  there  I  found  a  ship  bound 
for  Baku,  so,  thinking  I  might  as  well  go 
there  as  anywhere  else,  I  got  on  board  and 
we  sailed  that  night.  I  don't  want  to  give 
you  a  tedious  account  of  my  journey;  I  will 
only  tell  you  that  it  did  me  all  the  good  in 
the  world,  and  that  I  walked  up  to  Ephesus 
one  evening  in  the  late  autumn  with  my 
toothbrush  in  my  pocket  and  real  home- 
coming excitement  in  my  heart.  There  was 
the  little  house;  there  was  my  garden,  show- 
ing quite  a  fair  amount  of  colour  for  the 
time  of  year;  there  was  MacPherson  sitting 
outside,  gravely  playing  his  interminable  Pa- 
tience. The  puppy — puppy  no  longer,  but 

261 


262  HERITAGE 

a  dog  of  almost  inconceivable  ugliness — 
rushed  out  barking,  and  seized  the  ankle  of 
my  trousers  in  its  joy.  MacPherson  looked 
up. 

"  'Hallo,'  he  said.     'Evening.' 

"  'Evening/  I  replied,  and  sat  down. 

"  'I  believe  this  Patience  is  coming  out/ 
he  said  presently. 

"  'Is  it?'  I  answered,  vastly  amused. 

"  'Yes/  said  MacPherson,  'if  I  could  only 
get  the  three  I  should  do  it.  Ah!'  and  he 
made  a  little  pounce,  and  shifted  some  cards. 
'Done  it/  he  announced  in  a  tone  of  mild 
triumph,  adding  regretfully,  'now  it  won't 
come  out  again  for  at  least  a  week.' 

"  'That's  a  pity/  I  said. 

"  'Yes/  he  replied,  'I  reckon  it  comes  out 
about  once  in  every  hundred  times.  Garden's 
all  right,  isn't  it?' 

"'Splendid/  I  said;  'I  was  just  looking  at 
it.  How's  your  digging?' 

"  'That's  all  right,  too.    Glad  you're  back/ 

"I  was  surprised  at  this  and  gratified,  but 
my  gratification  was  damped  when  his  ob- 
vious train  of  thought  had  occurred  to  me. 

"'Ready  to  work  to-morrow?'  he  asked, 
confirming  my  suspicion. 


HERITAGE  263 

"  'Rather.' 

"  'That's  all  right,'  he  said  again. 

"He  did  not  ask  me  where  I  had  been,  and 
I  thought  I  would  not  volunteer  it,  but  after 
a  day  or  two  I  did. 

"  'I  went  to  the  Caucasus,'  I  said. 

"He  answered,  'Oh.'  I  was  not  offended, 
only  greatly  amused;  he  was  a  perpetual  joy 
to  me,  that  man. 

"I  took  up  my  life  again  very  much  where 
I  had  left  it,  and  now  again  a  change  came 
about  in  my  thoughts;  they  were  constantly 
occupied  with  Ruth  and  with  that  examina- 
tion I  had  so  long  put  off,  of  her  relations 
with  her  husband.  As  the  story  which  I 
shall  presently  tell  you  will  make  them  quite 
clear  to  you — if  anything  so  involved  can 
ever  be  made  quite  clear — I  shall  not  bore 
you  now  with  my  own  conjectures.  It  is 
quite  bad  enough  that  I  should  bore  you 
with  my  own  life,  but  you  will  agree  that 
I  couldn't  say  to  you,  'Now  ten  years 
passed,'  without  giving  you  the  slightest  idea 
of  my  movements  during  those  ten  years. 
Those  ten  years,  you  see,  are  my  little 
Odyssey;  I  look  back  on  them  now,  and  I 
see  them  in  that  light,  but  while  they  lasted 


264  HERITAGE 

I  naturally  didn't  look  on  them  as  a  poetic 
spell  out  of  my  life;  no,  I  looked  on  them 
as  a  sample  of  what  my  life  would  be  till 
it  came  to  the  simplest  of  all  ends:  death. 
I  supposed  that  I  should  stay  at  Ephesus 
with  MacPherson  till  he  got  tired  of  exca- 
vating, which  I  knew  would  never  happen, 
or  till  I  got  tired  of  excavating,  which  I 
thought  was  much  more  likely,  or  till  the 
authorities  turned  us  out.  After  that  I 
didn't  know  what  I  should  do,  but  I  thought, 
so  far  as  I  ever  thought  about  it  at  all,  that 
something  would  turn  up  in  much  the  same 
way  as  the  boat  at  Smyrna  had  turned  up  to 
take  me  to  Baku.  What  did  occasionally 
exercise  my  mind  was  the  question  whether 
I  should  ever  see  England  again?  If  I 
couldn't  have  Ruth  I  didn't  want  to  go  to 
England;  it  would  be  a  torment  to  know  her 
so  near;  but  on  the  other  hand  I  foresaw 
that  as  an  old  man  of  seventy  I  should  not 
want  to  be  still  knocking  about  the  world 
or  excavating  at  Ephesus.  The  ravens  would 
have  to  provide.  Why  make  plans?  Fate 
only  steps  in  and  upsets  them.  How  angry 
I  used  to  make  you  by  talking  about  Fate, 
do  you  remember? 


HERITAGE  265 

"Meanwhile  my  Odyssey  continued,  and  I 
found  that  every  year  my  restlessness  re- 
turned to  me,  so  that  sooner  or  later  the 
moment  always  came  when  I  said  to  Mac- 
Pherson, — 

6  'I  am  afraid  I  shall  have  to  go  away 
to-morrow,'  and  he  replied  invariably, — 

"'Oh?    All  right.' 

"I  went  to  all  manner  of  places,  but  never 
to  England,  and  always  in  the  autumn  I 
returned  to  Ephesus  to  find  MacPherson 
there  unchanged,  always  glad  to  see  me 
because  of  my  help  in  his  work,  and  in  all 
those  years  he  never  once  asked  me  where 
I  had  been  to.  I  forget  now  myself  where 
I  went,  except  that  I  never  once  went  any- 
where near  England,  much  as  I  wanted  to 
go,  because  I  knew  the  temptation  would 
be  too  strong  for  me.  This  journey  of  mine 
became  thus  an  annual  institution.  There 
was  another  annual  institution  of  which  Mac- 
Pherson knew  only  the  outer  and  less  impor- 
tant part;  this  was  the  arrival  of  seeds  from 
England,  with  Ruth's  little  letter  attached; 
I  came  to  know  all  her  phrases,  which  re- 
volved with  the  years  in  a  cycle:  she  hoped 
the  seeds  would  do  well  with  me;  her  garden 


266  HERITAGE 

had  been  dried  up,  or  washed  out,  as  the 
case  might  be,  the  previous  summer — there 
is  never  a  perfect  summer  for  a  gardener, 
just  as  there  is  never  a  perfect  day  for  a 
fisherman;  her  children  were  well  and  sent 
their  respects,  varied  by  love;  her  husband 
was  well  too;  she  must  stop  as  she  had  no 
more  news,  or,  as  the  post  was  going.  Occa- 
sionally she  ended  up,  'In  great  haste,' 
though  what  the  haste  could  be  in  that 
leisurely  life  I  failed  to  imagine. 

"I  came  to  look  for  this  letter  in  my  year 
as  the  devout  man  looks  for  a  feast-day;  it 
was,  so  to  speak,  my  Easter.  My  little 
packet  grew,  that  much-travelled  little  packet, 
which  went  with  me  on  all  my  pilgrimages. 
I  wondered  whether  she  cherished  my  letters, 
over  in  England,  as  I  cherished  hers  at 
Ephesus?  In  the  meantime  she  was  there, 
in  the  house  I  knew,  living  through  these 
years  in  a  calm  monotony  which  was  a  con- 
solation to  me,  because  I  could  so  well 
imagine  it;  I  could  call  up  a  picture  of  her, 
in  fact,  at  practically  any  moment  of  the 
day,  for  what  variation  could  there  be  to 
her  quotidian  round  of  cooking,  housework, 
washing,  sewing?  This  was,  I  say,  a  pleas- 


HERITAGE  267 

ant  reflection  to  me,  though  I  was  enraged 
to  think  that  her  care  and  labour  should  be 
expended  upon  another  man  and  another 
man's  children.  A  placid  existence,  broken 
only  by  the  calving  of  cows,  the  farrowing 
of  swine,  the  gathering  in  of  crops.  .  .  . 
And  I  at  Ephesus! 

"MacPherson  never  spared  me  my  share 
of  the  work,  and  a  hard  taskmaster  he  was, 
as  hard  to  himself  as  to  me.  In  the  summer 
we  breakfasted  soon  after  the  dawn  had* 
begun  to  creep  into  the  sky,  then  with  pick 
and  mattock  we  trudged  to  the  ruins,  there 
to  toil  until  the  heat  of  the  sun  glaring  upon 
the  quantities  of  white  marble  which  lay 
about  drove  us  indoors  until  evening.  Mac- 
Pherson was  always  very  grudging  and  re- 
sentful with  regard  to  this  enforced  siesta. 
In  fact  he  would  not  admit  it  as  a  siesta,  but 
affected  to  consider  it  merely  as  a  variation 
of  work,  and  would  remain  below  in  our 
little  sitting-room,  turning  over  for  the  thou- 
sandth time  his  scraps  and  fragments  of 
glass,  pottery,  and  other  rubbish,  while  I 
lay  on  my  bed  upstairs  damning  the  mos- 
quitoes and  trying  to  go  to  sleep.  No 
sooner  had  I  dozed  off  than  I  would  be 


268  HERITAGE 

aroused  by  MacPherson's  remorseless  voice 
calling  up  to  know  if  I  was  ready.  Evening 
in  the  ruins  I  did  not  mind  so  much;  a 
little  breeze  often  sprang  up  from  the  sea, 
and  I  had  the  prospect  of  an  hour's  garden- 
ing immediately  in  front  of  me.  On  the 
whole  I  was  happy  in  those  hours  of  toil. 
Living  in  my  thoughts,  and  sparing  just 
the  bare  requisite  of  consciousness  to  the 
needs  of  my  tools,  I  became  almost  as  taciturn 
as  my  companion.  Yet  I  never  came  to  look 
on  Ephesus  as  a  home;  I  was  only  a  bird 
of  passage — a  passage  lasting  ten  years,  it 
is  true,  but  still  only  a  passage.  I  didn't 
see  how  it  was  going  to  end,  but  my  old 
friend  Fate  stepped  in  at  last  and  settled 
that  for  me. 

"It  was  July,  and  my  annual  restlessness 
had  been  creeping  over  me  for  some  time; 
besides,  it  was  getting  unpleasantly  hot  at 
Ephesus,  and  I  panted  for  the  cold  air  of 
the  mountains.  So  I  said  to  MacPherson 
at  breakfast, — 

'  'I  think  the  time  for  my  yearly  flitting 
has  come  round  again;  in  fact,  I  think  I'll 
be  off  to-day.' 

"I  waited  for  the,  'Oh?    All  right,'  but  it 


HERITAGE  269 

didn't  come.  Instead  of  that,  he  said  after 
a  little  pause,— 

"  'I  wonder  if  you  would  put  off  going 
until  to-morrow?' 

"It  was  the  first  time  I  had  ever  heard 
him  raise  an  objection  to  any  suggestion  of 
mine,  and  I  was  faintly  surprised,  but  I 
said, — 

"  'Of  course  I  will.  One  day's  just  as 
good  as  another.  Got  a  special  job  for  me?' 

"  'No,'  he  said,  'it  isn't  that.' 

"I  did  not  question  him;  I  had  long  since 
followed  his  lead,  and  we  never  questioned 
one  another. 

"Still,  I  wondered  to  myself,  as  one  can- 
not help  wondering  when  anything  unusual, 
however  slight,  occurs  to  break  a  regularity 
such  as  ours.  A  stone  thrown  in  a  rough 
sea  falls  unperceived,  but  thrown  into  a 
pond  of  mirror-like  surface  it  creates  a  real 
disturbance.  So  all  the  morning  I  observed 
MacPherson  as  closely  as  I  dared;  I  saw 
him  go  to  get  his  things,  and  I  detected  a 
slight  weariness  in  his  walk;  still  he  said 
nothing.  It  was  glaringly  hot  at  the  ruins. 
I  thought  of  suggesting  that  we  should  go 
home  earlier  than  usual,  and,  turning  round 


270  HERITAGE 

to  look  for  MacPherson,  I  saw  him  at  a 
little  distance,  sitting  on  a  boulder,  with  his 
head  in  his  hands.  This  was  so  unusual  that 
I  immediately  crossed  over  to  him. 

"  'I  say,  aren't  you  feeling  well?' 

"He  raised  to  me  a  livid  face. 

"  'I  shall  be  all  right  presently.  ...  A 
touch  of  the  sun.' 

"  'You  must  come  indoors  at  once,'  I  said 
firmly.  'You  must  be  mad  to  sit  here  in  this 
heat.  Can  you  walk?' 

"He  rose  with  infinite  weariness,  but  with- 
out a  word  of  complaint,  and  attempted  to 
lift  his  pick. 

'"I'll  take  that,'  I  said,  taking  it  from 
him,  and  he  gave  it  up  without  a  word.  'Is 
there  anything  else  to  bring?' 

"He  shook  his  head,  and  began  to  stumble 
off  in  the  direction  of  the  house.  Long  be- 
fore we  had  reached  home,  I  knew  what  was 
the  matter  with  my  companion.  The  sun 
was  not  responsible.  He  was  in  the  grip 
of  cholera. 

"The  Albanian,  who  was  splashing  cold 
water  from  a  bucket  over  the  tiled  floor  of 
our  little  sitting-room  when  we  arrived, 
stared  at  us  in  astonishment.  MacPherson, 


HERITAGE  271 

his  face  faded  to  the  colour  of  wood-ashes, 
had  his  arm  round  my  neck  for  support,  and 
already  the  terrible  cramps  of  the  disease 
were  beginning  to  twist  his  body  as  he 
dragged  one  leaden  foot  after  the  other.  I 
called  to  Marco,  and  between  us  we  half 
carried  him  upstairs  and  laid  him  on  his 
bed,  where  he  lay,  silent,  but  drawing  his 
breath  in  with  the  long  gasps  of  pain,  and 
with  his  arm  flung  across  his  eyes  so  that 
we  should  not  observe  his  face. 

"I  drew  Marco  out  on  to  the  landing.  I 
bade  him  saddle  the  mule  q,nd  ride  straight 
to  the  station,  where  he  must  take  the  train 
for  Smyrna  and  return  without  delay  with 
the  English  doctor.  I  did  not  think,  in  my 
private  mind,  that  the  doctor  could  arrive  in 
time,  or  that  he  could  do  more  than  I  could, 
who  had  some  experience  of  cholera,  but  still 
I  was  bound  to  send  for  him.  Marco  nodded 
violently  all  the  time  I  was  speaking.  I 
knew  I  could  trust  him;  he  was  an  honest 
man.  I  went  back  to  MacPherson. 

"I  had  never  been  into  his  bedroom  before. 
The  Venetian  blinds  were  lowered  outside 
the  windows,  and  the  floor  and  walls  were 
barred  with  the  resulting  stripes  of  shade 


272  HERITAGE 

and  sun.  A  plaid  rug  lay  neatly  folded 
across  the  foot  of  the  bed.  On  the  dressing- 
table  were  two  wooden  hair-brushes  and  a 
comb,  on  the  wash-stand  were  sponges,  but 
no  possessions  of  a  more  personal  nature 
could  I  discover  anywhere.  The  man,  it 
seemed,  had  no  personal  life  at  all. 

"He  was  lying  where  I  had  left  him,  still 
breathing  heavily;  his  skin  was  icy  cold,  so 
I  covered  him  over  with  the  quilt  from  my 
own  room,  knowing  that  it  was  no  use  at- 
tempting to  get  him  into  bed,  and  feeling, 
in  a  sympathetic  way,  that  he  would  prefer 
to  be  left  alone.  I  went  to  get  what  remedies 
I  could  from  our  medicine-chest  downstairs, 
and  as  I  was  doing  this  my  eye  fell  on  his 
little  cupboard  where  behind  glass  doors  he 
kept  his  precious  shards,  all  labelled  and 
docketed  in  his  inhumanly  neat  handwriting, 
and  I  wondered  whether,  in  a  week  or  so,  I 
should  see  him  sitting  down  there,  fingering 
his  treasures  with  hands  that,  always  thin, 
would  surely  be  shrunken  then  to  the  claws 
of  a  skeleton. 

"It's  bad  enough  to  see  any  man  in  ex- 
treme agonies  of  pain,  but  when  the  man 
is  an  uncommunicative,  efficient,  self-reliant 


HERITAGE  273 

creature  like  MacPherson  it  becomes  ten 
times  worse.  I  felt  that  a  devil  had  delib- 
erately set  himself  to  tear  the  seals  from 
that  sternly  repressed  personality.  Mac- 
Pherson, who  had  always  assumed  a  mask 
to  disguise  any  human  feelings  he  may  have 
had,  was  here  forced,  driven,  tortured  into 
the  revelation  of  ordinary  mortal  weakness. 
I  believe  that,  even  through  the  suffering 
which  robs  most  men  of  all  vestiges  of  their 
self-respect,  he  felt  himself  to  be  bitterly 
humiliated.  I  believe  that  he  would  almost 
have  preferred  to  fight  his  disease  alone  in 
the  wilderness.  Yet  I '  could  not  leave  him, 
He  was  crying  constantly  for  water,  which 
I  provided,  and  besides  this  there  were  many 
services  to  render,  details  of  which  I  will 
spare  you.  I  sat  by  the  window  with  my 
back  turned  to  him  whenever  he  did  not  need 
me,  glad  to  spare  him  what  observation  I 
could,  and  glad  also,  I  confess,  to  spare 
myself  the  sight  of  that  blue,  shrivelled  face, 
tormented  eyes,  and  of  the  long  form  that 
knotted  and  bent  itself  in  contortions  like 
the  man-snake  of  a  circus.  .  .  .  His  cour- 
age was  marvellous.  He  resolutely  stifled 
the  cries  which  rose  to  his  throat,  hiding  his 


274  HERITAGE 

face  and  holding  his  indrawn  breath  until 
the  spasm  had  passed. 

"I  knew  that  this  stage  of  the  disease 
would  probably  continue  for  two  or  three 
hours,  when  the  man  would  collapse,  and 
when  the  pain  might  or  might  not  be  re- 
lieved. The  sun  was  high  in  the  heavens 
when  I  noticed  the  first  signs  of  exhaustion. 
MacPherson  sank  rapidly,  and  the  deadly 
cold  for  which  I  was  watching  overcame  him; 
I  covered  him  with  blankets — this  he  feebly 
resisted — and  banked  him  round  with  hot 
water  bottles,  of  which  we  always  kept  a 
supply  in  case  of  emergency.  It  was  now 
midday,  and  I  had  continually  to  wipe  the 
sweat  from  my  face,  but  I  could  not  succeed 
in  bringing  much  warmth  to  poor  Mac- 
Pherson. He  lay  quiet  and  silent  now,  save 
when  the  fearful  sickness  returned,  as  it  did 
at  short  intervals.  I  sat  beside  him,  ready 
with  the  water  for  which  he  was  continually 
asking. 

"He  was,  as  I  have  said,  always  thin,  but 
by  this  time  his  face  was  cavernous;  I  could 
have  hidden  my  knuckles  in  the  depression 
over  his  temples,  and  my  fist  in  the  hollow 
under  his  cheek-bones.  His  scant,  reddish 


HERITAGE  275 

hair,  always  carefully  smoothed,  lay  about 
his  forehead  in  tragic  wisps.  His  pale  blue 
eyes  showed  as  two  smears  of  colour  in  their 
great  sockets.  His  interminable  legs  and 
arms  stirred  at  unexpected  distances  under 
the  pile  of  blankets.  He  was  very  weak.  I 
feared  that  he  would  not  pull  through. 

"When  the  merciless  sun  was  beginning  to 
disappear  round  the  corner  of  the  house, 
MacPherson,  who  had  been  lying  for  the  last 
hour  or  so  in  a  state  of  coma,  spoke  to  me 
in  a  low  voice.  I  was  staring  in  a  melan- 
choly way  from  my  chair  by  his  side,  across 
the  bed,  between  a  chink  of  the  Venetian 
blind ;  L  don't  know  what  I  was  thinking  of, 
probably  my  mind  was  a  blank.  I  started 
when  I  heard  him  whisper  my  name,  and 
bent  towards  him.  He  whispered, — 

"  'I  don't  think  I'm  going  to  recover.' 

"Neither  did  I,  and  seeing  that  he  had 
made  the  remark  as  a  statement  of  fact,  in 
his  usual  tone,  though  low-pitched,  I  waited 
for  what  he  should  say  next.  He  said, — 

"  'I  am  sorry  to  be  a  bore.' 

"This  was  a  hard  remark  to  answer,  but 
I  murmured  something.  He  went  on,  still 
in  that  hoarse  whisper, — 


276  HERITAGE 

"  'I  must  talk  to  you  first.' 

"I  saw  that  he  was  perfectly  lucid  in  his 
mind,  and  thinking  that  he  wanted  to  give 
me  some  necessary  instructions  I  encouraged 
him  to  go  on,  but  he  only  shook  his  head, 
and  I  saw  that  he  had  fallen  back  into  the 
characteristic  apathy.  I  sat  on,  expecting 
the  arrival  of  Marco  and  the  doctor  at  any 
moment. 

"Towards  night,  MacPherson  roused  him- 
self again.  He  was  so  much  weaker  that 
I  could  barely  make  out  the  words  he 
breathed. 

*  'It  is  time  you  went  to  water  your 
garden.' 

"I  shook  my  head.  A  distressed  look  came 
over  his  face,  and  to  comfort  him  I  said,— 

'  'Marco     has     promised    to     do     it     for 


me.' 


"He  was  content  with  that,  and  lay  quiet 
with  his  long,  long  arms  and  thin  hands  out- 
side the  coverlet.  I  thought  that  he  wanted 
to  speak  again,  but  had  not  the  energy  to 
begin,  so,  to  help  him,  I  suggested,— 

'Was  there  anything  you  wanted  to  say 
to  me?' 

"He  nodded,   more  with  his   eyelids   than 


HERITAGE  277 

with   his   head,    then,    bracing   himself    with 
pain  for  the  effort,  he  whispered,— 
'You  won't  stay  on  here?'    , 

"I  answered,  'No,'  feeling  that  to  adopt  a 
reassuring,  hearty  attitude  would  be  an  in- 
sult to  the  man. 

"After  a  long  pause  he  said,— 

"  'I  want  to  be  buried  up  here.  By  the 
ruins.  I  don't  care  about  consecrated  ground.' 

"An  appalling  attack  of  sickness  inter- 
rupted him,  after  which  he  lay  in  such  com- 
plete exhaustion  that  I  thought  he  would 
never  speak  again.  But  after  about  half  an 
hour,  he  resumed, — 

'  'Give  me  your  word  of  honour.     They 
will  try  to  prevent  you.' 

"I  swore  it — poor  devil. 

'  'Bury  me   deep,'  he   said   with  a  grim, 
twisted  smile,  'or  some  one  will  excavate  me.' 

"He  seemed  a  little  stronger,  but  I  knew 
the  recovery  could  only  be  fictitious.  Then 
he  went  on, — 

"  'Will  you  do  something  else  for  me?' 

"  'Of  course  I  will,'  I  answered,  'anything 
you  ask.' 

"  'My  wife  .   .  .'he  murmured. 

"  'Your  wife?'  I  said. 


278  HERITAGE 

"  'She's  in  London,'  he  whispered,  and  he 
gave  me  the  address,  dragging  it  up  out  of 
the  depths  of  his  memory. 

"In  London!  Even  in  that  dim  room, 
with  the  dying  man  there  beneath  my  hand, 
I  felt  my  heart  bound  with  a  physical  sen- 
sation. 

"'Just  tell  her,'  he  added;  'she  won't 
mind.  She  won't  make  you  a  scene.' 

"He  was  silent  then,  but  drank  a  great 
draught  of  water. 

"Is  there  any  one  else?'  I  asked. 

"His  head  moved  very  feebly  in  the  nega- 
tive on  the  pillow. 

'  'And  what  am  I  to  do  with  your  things?' 
I  asked  lastly. 

"  'Look  through  them,'  he  breathed ;  'noth- 
ing private.  Give  the  fragments  to  the 
British  Museum.  I've  made  a  will  about 
money.' 

"  'And  your  personal  things?  Would  you 
like  me  to  give  them  to  your  wife?' 

"  'Oh,  no,'  he  said  wearily,  '  'tisn't  worth 
while.'  Then  after  a  long  pause  in  which 
he  seemed  to  be  meditating,  he  said,  with 
evidently  unconscious  pathos,  'I  don't  know. 
.  .  .  Better  throw  them  away.' 


y 


"MACPHEKSON  died  that  night  about  an  hour 
before  the  doctor  came;  Marco  and  the  doc- 
tor had  missed  each  other,  and  had  missed 
the  trains,  but  the  doctor  reassured  me  that 
I  had  done  all  that  was  possible,  and  that 
had  he  arrived  by  midday  he  could  not  have 
saved  MacPherson's  life. 

"  'I  suppose  you  will  want  to  bring  him 
down  to  the  English  cemetery  at  Smyrna?' 
he  said,  with  an  offer  of  help  tripping  on  the 
heels  of  his  remark.  He  looked  horrified 
when  I  told  him  of  MacPherson's  wish  and 
of  my  intention  of  carrying  it  out. 

"  'But  no  priest,  I  am  afraid,  will  consent 
to  read  the  burial  service  over  him  under 
those  conditions,'  he  said  primly. 

"'Then  I  will  read  it  myself,'  I  replied 
in  a  firm  voice. 

"  'You  must  please  yourself  about  that/ 
said  the  doctor,  giving  it  up.  His  attitude 
towards  me,  which  had  started  by  being  sym- 
pathetic, was  now  changing  subtly  to  a  slight 
impatience.  He  took  out  his  watch.  'I  am 

279 


280  HERITAGE 

afraid  I  ought  to  be  going,'  he  remarked,  'if 
I  am  to  catch  the  last  train  down  to  Smyrna, 
and  there  seems  to  be  nothing  more  I  can 
do  for  you  here.  There  will  have  to  be  a  cer- 
tificate of  death,  of  course;  I  will  send  you 
that.  '  And  if  you  like  I  will  stop  in  the  vil- 
lage on  the  way,  and  send  some  one  up  to 
you;  you  understand  me — a  layer-out.' 

"I  said  that  I  should  be  much  obliged  to 
him,  and,  accompanying  him  as  far  as  the 
front  door,  I  watched  him  go  with  Marco 
and  a  lantern,  the  little  parallelogram  of  yel- 
low light  criss-crossed  with  black  lines,  sway- 
ing to  and  fro  in  the  night. 

"I  could  not  go  to  bed,  and  as  I  was 
anxious  to  leave  Ephesus  as  soon  as  possible, 
I  thought  I  would  employ  my  time  in  going 
through  poor  MacPherson's  few  possessions. 
As  he  said,  there  was  nothing  private.  I 
sat  downstairs  in  the  sitting-room  we  had 
shared,  with  his  tin  box  open  on  the  table 
before  me,  shiny  black,  and  the  inside  of  the 
lid  painted  sky-blue.  It  was  pitifqlly  empty. 
His  will  was  in  a  long  envelope,  a  will  mak- 
ing provision  for  his  wife,  and  bequeathing 
the  remainder  of  his  income  to  an  archae- 
ological society;  there  was  also  a  codicil  di- 


HERITAGE  281 

reeling  that  his  Ephesian  fragments  were  to 
go,  as  he  had  told  me,  to  the  British  Museum. 
The  box  also  contained  a  diary,  recording, 
not  his  life,  but  his  discoveries;  and  a  few 
letters  from  men  of  science.  For  the  rest, 
there  were  his  books,  his  clothes,  his  wrist- 
watch,  his  plaid  rug,  and  a  little  loose  cash 
in  Turkish  coins.  And  that  was  all.  There 
was  absolutely  nothing  else.  Not  a  photo- 
graph, not  a  seal,  not  even  a  bunch  of  keys. 
Nothing  private!  I  should  think  not,  indeed. 
"I  sat  there  staring  at  the  bleak  little  col- 
lection when  Marco  came  in  to  say  that  he 
had  returned  with  the  layer-out.  I  went  into 
the  passage,  and  there  I  found  our  old  negro 
post-woman,  grinning  as  usual  in  her  magenta 
wrapper;  it  seemed  that  she  combined  several 
village  functions  in  her  own  person.  I  felt 
an  instinctive  horror  at  the  thought  of  those 
black  hands  pawing  poor  MacPherson,  but 
the  thing  was  unavoidable,  so  I  took  her 
upstairs  to  where  he  lay  in  a  repose  that 
appeared  to  me  enviable  after  the  brief  but 
terrible  suffering  he  had  undergone,  and  left 
her  there,  bending  over  him,  the  softer  parts 
of  her  huge  body  quivering  as  usual  under 
her  mashlak.  I  went  downstairs  again,  and 


282  HERITAGE 

stood  outside  to  breathe  the  clean,  cool  air; 
the  sky  hung  over  me  swarming  with  stars; 
I  tried  not  to  think  of  the  old  negress  exer- 
cising her  revolting  profession  on  MacPher- 
son's  body. 

"Next  day  two  men  in  baggy  trousers  and 
red  sashes  came  up  to  the  house  carrying 
the  hastily-made  coffin.  Then  we  set  out, 
Marco,  myself,  and  the  two  men  with  the 
coffin  and  MacPherson  inside  it.  Providen- 
tially there  were  no  tourists  that  day  at 
Ephesus.  Marco  and  I  had  been  hard  at 
work  all  the  morning  digging  the  grave,  and 
as  I  drove  my  pick  I  reflected  that  this  was, 
humanly  speaking,  the  last  time  I  should 
ever  break  up  the  flinty  ground  of  Ephesus. 
After  ten  years !  With  regard  to  myself  and 
my  future,  I  dared  not  think ;  my  present  pre- 
occupation was  to  have  finished  with  Mac- 
Pherson and  his  widow. 

"Well,  I  buried  him  up  there,  and  may  I 
be  hanged  if  I  don't  think  the  man  was  better 
and  more  happily  buried  in  the  place  he  had 
loved,  than  stuck  down  in  a  corner  of  some 
unfriendly  cemetery  he  had  never  seen.  For 
myself — such  is  the  egoism  of  our  nature — 
I  was  thinking  all  the  while  that  I  would 


HERITAGE  283 

leave  behind  me  a  written  request  to  be  buried 
within  sight  of  Westmacott's  farm  in  Kent. 
And  after  I  had  buried  him,  and  had  got 
rid  of  Marco  and  the  two  men  over  a  bottle 
of  raki  in  the  kitchen,  I  took  all  the  flowers 
from  my  garden  and  put  them  on  his  grave, 
and  I  dug  up  some  roots  of  orchid  and 
cyclamen  and  planted  them  at  his  head  and 
at  his  feet ;  but  I  don't  suppose  they  ever  sur- 
vived the  move,  and  probably  to  this  day  the 
tourists  who  wander  far  enough  afield  to 
stumble  over  the  mound,  say,  'Why,  some  one 
has  buried  his  dog  out  here.' 

"A  week  later  I  was  in  London,  on  a  blaz- 
ing August  day  which  seemed  strangely  misty 
to  me,  accustomed  as  I  was  to  the  direct,  un- 
mitigated rays  of  the  sun  on  the  Ephesian 
hills.  I  still  hadn't  thought  about  my  future, 
and  I  was  resolved  not  to  do  so  until,  my  in- 
terview with  Mrs.  MacPherson  over,  I  could 
look  upon  the  whole  of  the  last  ten  years  as 
an  episode  of  the  past.  I  had  tried  to  forget 
that  I  was  in  the  same  country  as  Ruth;  but 
this  had  been  difficult,  for  the  train  from 
Dover  had  carried  me  through  the  heart  of 
Ruth's  own  county,  a  cruel,  unforeseen  prank 


284  HERITAGE 

of  fortune;  I  had  pulled  down  the  blinds  of 
my  railway  carriage,  greatly  to  the  annoyance 
of  my  fellow-travellers,  but  these  good  peo- 
ple, who  might  have  been  involved  with  Fate 
in  a  conspiracy  against  me,  had  their  unwit- 
ting revenge  and  defeated  my  object  utterly 
by  saying,  as  we  flashed  through  a  station, 
"That  was  Hildenborough ;  now  we  have  to  go 
through  a  long  tunnel.' 

"Hildenborough!  After  ten  years,  during 
which  I  had  consistently  kept  at  least  fifteen 
hundred  miles  between  us,  I  was  at  last  within 
two  miles  of  her  home.  I  nearly  sprang  out 
of  the  train  at  the  thought.  But  I  resolutely 
put  it  away,  so  resolutely  that  I  found  myself 
pushing  with  my  hands  and  with  all  my  force 
against  the  side  of  the  railway  carriage. 

"It  was  too  late,  when  I  reached  London, 
to  do  anything  that  day.  I  slept  at  my  old 
club,  where  everybody  started  at  the  sight  of 
me  as  of  a  ghost,  and  the  following  morn- 
ing I  went  to  the  address  MacPherson  had 
given  me.  It  was  in  a  block  of  flats,  a  long 
way  up.  I  was  left  stranded  upon  the  tiny 
landing  by  the  lift-boy,  who,  with  his  lift, 
fell  rapidly  down  through  the  floor  as  though 
pulled  from  below  by  a  giant's  hand.  I  rang 


HERITAGE  285 

the  bell.  It  tinkled  loudly;  I  heard  voices 
within,  and  presently  a  woman  came  to  open 
the  door,  with  an  expression  of  displeased  in- 
quiry on  her  face;  a  middle-aged  woman, 
wearing  a  dingy  yellow  dressing-gown  which 
she  kept  gathering  together  in  her  hand  as 
though  afraid  that  it  would  fall  open. 

"  'Can  I  see  Mrs.  MacPherson?'  I  asked. 

"She  stared  at  me. 

"  'There's  no  Mrs.  MacPherson  here.' 

"I  heard  a  man's  voice  from  inside  the 
flat,- 

"'What  is  it,  Belle?' 

"She  called  back  over  her  shoulder, — 

"  'Here's  a  party  asking  to  see  Mrs.  Mac- 
Pherson.' 

"'Who  is  it?'  asked  the  voice. 
'Who  are  you,  anyway?'  said  Belle  to  me. 

"  'I  have  been  sent  here  by  Mr.  MacPher- 
son, Mr.  Angus  MacPherson,  with  a  message 
for  his  wife,'  I  said,  'but  as  I  have  evidently 
made  a  mistake  I  had  better  apologise  and  go 
away.' 

"She  looked  suddenly  thoughtful — or  was 
it  apprehensive? 

"  'No,  don't  go  away/  she  said.  'You 
haven't  made  a  mistake.  Come  in.' 

"I  went  in,  and  she  closed  the  door  behind 


286  HERITAGE 

me.  I  followed  her  into  the  sitting-room 
where,  amid  surroundings  at  once  pretentious 
and  tawdry,  a  man,  also  in  a  dressing-gown, 
lay  stretched  on  the  sofa  smoking  cigarettes. 
He  was  handsome  in  a  vulgar  way,  with  black 
wavy  hair  and  a  curved,  sensuous  mouth. 

"  'Now,'  said  Belle,  'let's  hear  your  news  of 
Mr.  Angus  MacPherson?' 

"  'First  of  all,'  I-  answered,  'may  I  know 
who  I  am  talking  to?' 

"Belle  and  the  man  exchanged  glances. 

"  'Oh,  well,'  she  said  then,  'I  am  Mrs.  Mac- 
Pherson all  right  enough.  If  you  have  really 
got  a  message  for  me,  let's  hear  it.' 

"There  was  anxiety  in  her  tone,  and  she 
edged  nearer  to  the  handsome  man,  and  sur- 
reptitiously took  possession  of  his  hand. 

"I  did  not  think  that  the  news  of  MacPher- 
son's  death  was  likely  to  cause  much  grief  to 
his  widow.  I  therefore  said  without  pre- 
amble,— 

"  'I  have  come  to  tell  you  that  he  died  a 
week  ago  of  cholera.  I  was  with  him  at  the 
time,  and  I  have  brought  you  the  certificate  of 
his  death,  also  his  will.  He  left  no  other 
papers.' 

'  'Angus  dead?'  said  Angus's  widow.  'You 
don't  say!  Poor  old  Angus!' 


HERITAGE  287 

"She  was  relieved  by  my  words;  I  know  she 
was  relieved.  She  began  reading  the  will  with 
avidity.  If  I  could  find  nothing  else  to  ad- 
mire about  her,  I  could  at  least  admire  her 
candour. 

"  'He's  left  me  five  hundred  a  year,'  she  said 
abruptly,  'and  the  rest  to  some  archi — what  is 
it?  society.  Five  hundred  a  year,  and  he  had 
a  thousand!' 

"  'Oh,  come,  Belle,'  said  the  handsome  man, 
*  that's  better  than  nothing.' 

"She  let  her  eyes  dwell  on  his  face  with  real 
affection,  real  kindliness. 

"  'Let's  have  a  look  at  that  will,'  he  mur- 
mured lazily. 

"She  passed  it  across  to  him,  sat  down  on  a 
stool,  clasped  her  knees,  and  became  medita- 
tive. 

"'Poor  old  Angus!'  she  repeated.  'Fancy 
that!  Well,  he  was  rare  fun  in  his  day, 
wasn't  he,  Dick?' 

"  'No  end  of  a  dog,'  replied  Dick  without 
removing  his  eyes  from  the  will. 

'  'Perhaps,  if  there  are  no  questions  you 
want  to  ask  me,  I  had  better  be  going  now,' 
I  began.  I  was  bewildered,  for  MacPherson, 
in  spite  of  his  eccentricities,  had  undoubtedly 
been  a  scholar  and  a  man  of  refinement. 


288  HERITAGE 

"Dick  stirred  from  his  spoilt  torpor. 

"  *I  suppose  it  is  quite  certain,'  he  said, 
'that  there  is  no  mistake?  I  mean,  it's  quite 
certain  he's  dead?' 

"  'Quite,'  I  answered  rather  grimly,  as  cer- 
tain visions  rose  before  my  eyes.  'I  buried 
him  myself;'  and  the  flat  with  its  dirty  lace, 
its  cheap  pretension,  melted  away  into  the 
quiet  beauty  of  Ephesus. 

"I  walked  away  from  the  building  with  an 
inexpressible  loneliness  at  heart,  faced  with 
my  own  immediate  and  remoter  future,  a 
problem  I  had  hitherto  refused  to  consider, 
but  which  now  rushed  at  me  like  the  oncom- 
ing wave  rushes  at  the  failing  swimmer  and 
overwhelms  him.  I  had  finished  with  Ephesus 
and  MacPherson,  and  with  MacPherson's 
wife,  and  to  say  that  I  felt  depressed  would 
give  you  no  idea  of  my  feelings:  an  immense 
desolation  took  possession  of  me,  an  immense 
desolation,  and  more:  an  immense,  soul- 
destroying  disgust  and  weariness  at  the 
cruelty  of  things,  a  lassitude  such  as  I  had 
never  conceived,  so  that  I  envied  MacPherson 
lying  for  ever  at  peace,  away  from  strife  and 
difficulties  and  things  that  would  not  go  right, 
among  beautiful  and  untroubled  hills,  with 


HERITAGE  289 

wild  flowers  blooming  round  his  grave.  Yes, 
I  envied  him,  I  that  am  a  sane  man  and  have 
always  prized  rich  life  at  its  full  value. 

"And  as  I  walked  I  met  two  men  I  had 
known,  who  spoke  to  me  by  my  name  and 
stopped  me. 

"  Why,  it's  Malory,'  said  one  of  them.  'I 
haven't  seen  you  lately.  Somebody  told  me 
you  had  gone  to  Scotland?' 

"  'Yes,'  I  said,  'I  went  to  Scotland.' 
"He  asked  me,  'What  part  of  Scotland?' 
"'To  Aberdeen,'  I  cried,  'to  Aberdeen!' 
and  laughed,  and  left  them. 

"I  had  been  prepared  to  pass  unrecog- 
nised after  ten  years,  but  for  this  friendli- 
ness, which  had  not  'seen  me  lately,'  I  was 
"unprepared.  I  turned  into  a  park,  longing 
instinctively  for  the  country  as  the  only  pal- 
liative for  my  loneliness  and  melancholy.  In 
all  London  that  day  I  think  there  was  no 
lonelier  soul  than  I.  I  would  have  sought 
you  out,  but  in  such  crisis  of  world-sorrow  as 
was  mine,  I  could  desire  only  one  presence — a 
presence  I  might  not  have.  She  could  have 
annihilated  my  sorrow  by  a  word,  could  have 
made  me  forget  the  dirt,  and  the  irony;  all 
that  hurt  me  so  profoundly — though  I  don't 
think  myself  a  sentimentalist.  For  I  was  hurt 


290  HERITAGE 

as  a  raw  sentimentalist  is  hurt,  and  this  pain 
blended  with  my  own  trouble  into  a  sea  of 
despair.  I  wanted  to  find  a  haven  of  refuge, 
some  beautiful  gulf  where  the  wind  never 
blows,  but  where  harmonious  hills  rise  serenely 
from  the  water,  and  all  is  cultivated  and  easy 
and  fertile. 

"I  sat  for  a  long  time  under  the  trees, 
gazing  immovably  at  the  ground  between 
my  feet,  and  then  I  got  up  mechanically, 
without  any  plan  in  my  head,  and  wandered 
as  mechanically  home  towards  my  club.  My 
club  burst  incongruously  enough  on  my 
dreams  of  a  beautiful  gulf;  that,  again,  was 
part  of  the  irony  on  this  most  cruel  of  days. 
But  I  had  nowhere  else  to  go  to. 

"I  began  to  write  to  MacPherson's  solici- 
tors to  inform  them  of  their  client's  death; 
the  new  life  was  so  empty  that  I  clung  for  as 
long  as  I  was  able  to  the  old.  As  I  wrote, 
the  hall-boy  came  and  stood  at  my  elbow. 

"  'Please,  sir,  there's  a  young  woman  ask- 
ing to  see  you.' 

"A  young  woman?  Could  it  be  Belle?  so 
equipped  for  the  day's  battle  as  to  pass  for 
young? 

'What's  her  name?  what  does  she  want?' 

"  'She  won't  say,  sir;  she  wants  to  see  you.' 


HERITAGE  291 

"I  went  out.  Ruth  was  standing  by  the 
hall-door,  plainly  dressed  in  a  dark  coat  and 
skirt,  and  a  sailor  hat,  and  holding  a  couple 
of  faded  red  roses  in  her  hand. 

"I  looked  at  her  incredulously,  and  all  the 
world  stood  still. 

"She  began,  shyly  and  hurriedly, — 

"  'Oh,  I  don't  want  to  bother  you  if  you 
are  busy  .  .  .' 

"That  made  me  laugh. 

"  'I  am  not  busy,'  I  told  her. 

'  'Oh,  then  perhaps  I  could  speak  to  you 
for  a  few  minutes?  somewhere  just  quietly, 
and  alone?' 

"I  glanced  round.  The  porter  was  stand- 
ing there  with  a  face  carved  in  stone. 

'You  can't  come  in  here,'  I  said.    'Where 
$an  I  take  you?    Will  you  come  to  an  hotel?' 

'  'Oh,  no !'  she  said,  shrinking,  and  I  no- 
ticed her  little  gray  cotton  gloves. 

'  'At  any  rate,  let  us  get  away  from  here. 
Then  we  can  think  where  to  go.' 

"We  went  down  the  steps,  across  Picca- 
dilly, and  passed  into  the  Green  Park.  There 
I  stopped,  but  she  would  not  sit  on  the  chair  I 
suggested.  She  stood  before  me,  her  eyes  down- 
cast, and  her  gloved  fingers  twisting  the  stems 
€>f  her  roses.  I  bethought  myself  to  ask  her, — 


292  HERITAGE 

"  'How  on  earth  did  you  find  me,  to-day  of 
all  days?' 

"  'I  came  to  ask,'  she  answered,  still  in  that 
shy,  hurried  tone,  'whether  they  knew  when 
you  would  be  coming  to  London.' 

"  'And  they  told  you  I  was  there?' 

"  'Yes.' 

"  'You  came  up  from  the  Weald  on  pur- 
pose to  ask  that?' 
'  "'Yes.' 

"'But  why?' 

"She  was  silent. 

"'Why,  Ruth?' 

"  'Because  I  wanted  to  see  you.' 

"'To  see  me?' 

"'To  tell  you  something.' 

"'What  is  it?' 
'  'I  can't  tell  you  here,'  she  murmured. 

"  'Come  to  an  hotel,'  I  said  again,  'we  can 
get  a  private  sitting-room;  we  can  talk.' 

'  'Oh,  no,  not  that.  I  suppose  ...  I 
suppose  you  wouldn't  ...  I  am  sure  you 
are  busy.' 

'  'No,  no,  on  my  honour,  Ruth,  I  have 
absolutely  nothing  to  do  either  to-day,  or 
to-morrow,  or  the  next  day,  or  any  day  after 
that.' 


HERITAGE  293 

"  'Sure?'  she  said  eagerly,  raising  her  eyes 
for  one  moment  to  mine  and  then  lowering 
them  again. 

"  'Quite  sure.' 

"  'Then,'  with  sudden  boldness,  'will  you 
come  down  to  the  Weald  with  me?  now?  at 
once?' 

"  'To  the  Weald?  Of  course  I  will,  I'll  do 
anything  you  like.  We'll  go  straight  to 
Charing  Cross,  shall  we?' 

"  'Oh,  yes,  please,  you  are  very  good.  And 
please,  don't  ask  me  any  questions  till  we  get 
there.' 

"My  ten  years'  training  with  MacPherson 
proved  invaluable  to  me  now,  and  I  can  say 
with  pride  that  neither  by  direct  nor  indirect 
means  did  I  seek  to  extract  any  information 
from  Ruth.  Indeed,  I  was  content  to  observe 
her  as  she  sat  by  me  in  the  cab,  no  longer 
the  girl  I  remembered,  but  a  woman  of  ripe 
beauty,  and  yet  in  her  confused  manner  there 
was  a  remnant  of  girlishness,  in  her  lowered 
eyes,  and  her  tremulous  lips.  I  saw  that  she 
sat  there  full  of  suppressed  emotion,  buoyed 
up  by  some  intense  determination  which  car- 
ried her  over  her  shyness  and  confusion  as  a 
barque  carries  its  passenger  over  high  waves. 


294  HERITAGE 

I  was  too  bewildered,  too  numb  with  joy,  to 
wonder  much  at  the  cause  of  her  journey. 

"At  Charing  Cross  she  produced  the  return 
half  of  her  third-class  ticket  from  her  little 
purse,  refusing  to  let  me  pay  the  excess  fare 
which  would  allow  us  to  travel  first.  I  think 
she  was  afraid  of  being  shut  alone  with  me 
into  a  first-class  carriage,  knowing  that  in 
the  humbler  compartment  she  could  reckon  on 
the  security  of  company.  So  we  sat  on  the 
hard  wooden  benches,  opposite  one  another, 
rocking  and  swaying  with  the  train,  and 
trying  to  shrink  away  in  our  respective 
corners  from  the  contact  of  the  fruit-pickers 
who  crowded  us  unpleasantly:  Ruth  sat  star- 
ing out  over  the  fields  of  Kent,  her  hands  in 
their  neat  gray  cotton  gloves  lying  on  her 
lap,  and  the  tired  roses  drooping  listlessly 
between  her  fingers;  she  looked  a  little  pale, 
a  little  thin,  but  that  subtle  warmth  of  her 
personality  was  there  as  of  old,  whether  it 
lay,  as  I  never  could  decide,  in  the  glow 
under  her  skin  or  in  the  tender  curves  of 
her  features.  She  looked  up  to  catch  me 
gazing  at  her,  and  we  both  turned  to  the 
landscape  to  hide  our  confusion. 

"Ah!  I  could  look  out  over  that  flying 
landscape  now ,  with  no  need  to  pull  down 


HERITAGE  295 

the  window-blinds,  and  Penshurst  station, 
when  we  reached  it,  was  no  longer  a  pang, 
but  a  rejoicing.  The  train  stopped,  I  strug- 
gled with  the  door,  we  jumped  out,  the  train 
curved  away  again  on  its  journey,  and  we 
stood  side  by  side  alone  on  the  platform. 

"It  was  then  about  five  o'clock  of  a 
perfect  August  day.  Little  white  clouds 
stretched  in  a  broken  bank  along  the  sky. 
Dorothy  Perkins  bloomed  in  masses  on  the 
palings  of  the  wayside  station.  The  railway 
seemed  foreign  to  the  country,  the  English 
country  which  lay  there  immovable,  regard- 
less of  trains  that  hurried  restless  mankind 
to  and  fro,  between  London  and  the  sea. 

"  'Let  us  go,'  I  said  to  Ruth. 

"We  set  out  walking  across  the  fields,  in- 
finitely green  and  tender  to  my  eyes,  accus- 
tomed to  the  brown  stoniness  of  Ephesus. 
We  walked  in  silence,  but  I,  for  one?  walked 
happy  in  the  present,  and  feeling  the  aridity 
of  my  being  soaked  and  permeated  with 
repose  and  beauty.  Ruth  took  off  her  jacket, 
which  I  carried  for  her,  walking  cool  and 
slender  in  a  white  muslin  shirt.  In  this  soft 
garment  she  looked  eighteen,  as  I  remem- 
bered her. 

"We  took  the  short  cut  to  Westmacotts'. 


296  HERITAGE 

There  it  was,  the  lath  and  piaster  house,  the 
farm  buildings,  the  double  oast-house  at  the 
corner  of  the  big  black  barn,  simmering, 
hazy  and  mellow,  in  the  summer  evening.  A 
farm-hand,  carrying  a  great  truss  of  hay  on 
a  pitchfork  across  his  shoulder,  touched  his 
cap  to  Ruth  as  he  passed.  There  was  no 
sign  of  Westmacott. 

"  'Where  .  .  . '  I  began,  but  changed 
my  question.  'Where  are  the  children?' 

"  'I  left  them  over  with  mother  before  I 
came  away  this  morning,'  she  answered. 

"We  went  into  the  house,  into  the  kitchen, 
the  same  kitchen,  unchanged. 

"She  took  refuge  in  practical  matters. 

"  'Will  you  wait  there  while  I  take  off  my 
things  and  get  the  tea?' 

"I  sat  down  like  a  man  in  a  dream  while 
she  disappeared  upstairs.  I  was  quite  inca- 
pable of  reflection,  but  dimly  I  recognised 
the  difference  between  this  clean,  happy 
room  of  bright  colours  and  shining  brasses, 
and  the  tawdry,  musty  flat  I  had  penetrated 
that  morning,  and  the  contrast  spread  itself 
like  ointment  over  a  wound. 

"Ruth  returned;  she  had  taken  off  her  hat 
and  bnd  covered  her  London  clothes  by  a 


HERITAGE  297 

big  blue  linen  apron  with  patch  pockets. 
Her  sleeves  were  rolled  up  to  the  elbow;  I 
saw  the  smooth  brown  arm  with  the  delicate 
wrist  and  shapely  hand. 

"  'You'll  want  your  tea,'  she  said  briskly. 

"I  had  had  nothing  to  eat  since  break- 
fast. 

"You  told  me  once  in  a  letter  that  you  had 
been  to  tea  with  Ruth,  so  you  know  the 
kind  of  meal  she  provides:  bread,  honey, 
scones,  big  cups,  and  tea  in  an  enormous  tea- 
pot. She  laid  two  places  only,  moving  about, 
severely  practical,  but  still  quivering  with 
that  suppressed  excitement,  still  tense  with 
that  unfaltering  determination. 

"  'It's  ready,'  she  said  at  length,  summon- 
ing me. 

"I  couldn't  eat,  for  the  emotion  of  that 
meal  alone  with  her  was  too  strong  for  me. 
I  sat  absently  stirring  the  sugar  in  my  cup. 
She  tried  to  coax  me  to  eat,  but  her  solicitude 
exasperated  my  overstrained  nerves,  and  I 
got  up  abruptly. 

"  'It's  no  good,'  I  said,  'I  must  know. 
What  is  it,  Ruth?  What  had  you  to  tell 
me?' 

"The  moment  had  rushed  at  her  unawares; 


298  HERITAGE 

she  looked  at  me  with  frightened  eyes;  her 
determination,  put  to  the  test,  hesitated. 

"I  went  over  to  her  and  stood  before  her. 

"'What  is  it,  Ruth?'  I  said  again.  'You 
haven't  brought  me  down  here  for  nothing. 
Hadn't  you  better  tell  me  before  your  hus- 
band comes  in?' 

"  'He  won't  come  in,'  she  said,  hanging 
her  head  so  that  I  could  only  see  the  wealth 
of  her  hair  and  her  little  figure  in  the  big 
blue  apron, 

"  'How  do  you  know?'  I  asked. 

"  'He  isn't  here.' 

"  'Where  is  he,  then?' 

"She  raised  her  head  and  looked  me  full 
in  the  face,  no  longer  frightened,  but  steady, 
resolute. 

'  'He  has  left  me,'  she  said. 

"  'Left  you?  What  do  you  mean?  For 
good?' 

"  'Yes.  He's  left  me,  the  farm,  and  the 
children;  he's  never  coming  back.' 

"  'But  why?     Good  Heavens,  why?' 

"  'He  was  afraid,'  she  said  in  a  lo.w  voice. 

"'Afraid?' 

"'Yes.  Of  me.  Oh,'  she  broke  off,  'sit 
down  and  I  will  tell  you  all  about  it.' 


VI 

"AND  then  she  unfolded  to  me  the  extraor- 
dinary story  which,  as  I  warned  you  at  the 
very  beginning  of  my  letter,  you  will  proba- 
bly not  believe.  Nevertheless  I  offer  it  to 
you  as  a  fact,  so  tangible  a  fact  that  it  has 
driven  a  man — no  chicken-hearted  man — to 
abandon  his  home  and  source  of  wealth,  his 
wife,  and  his  children,  and  to  fly,  without 
stopping  to  pack  up  his  closest  possessions, 
to  America.  I  will  not  attempt  to  give  you 
the  story  in  Ruth's  own  words,  because  they 
came  confusedly,  transposing  the  order  of 
events,  dealing  only  with  effects,  ignoring  the 
examination  of  causes.  I  will  tell  it  you  as 
I  see  it  myself,  after  piecing  together  all  my 
scraps  of  narrative  and  evidence.  I  only 
hope  that,  in  dragging  you  away  with  me  to 
Ephesus,  and  in  giving  you  the  events  of 
my  own  life,  you  have  not  forgotten  those 
who,  in  the  Weald  of  Kent,  are,  after  all, 
far  more  essential  characters  than  I  myself. 
Please  try  now  to  forget  the  MacPhersons, 

299 


300  HERITAGE 

and  project  yourself,  like  a  kind,  accommo- 
dating audience,  to  the  homestead,  outwardly 
so  peaceable,  inwardly  the  stormy  centre  of 
so  many  complicated  passions. 

"And,  again  like  a  kind,  accommodating 
audience,  put  ready  at  your  elbow  a  little 
heap  of  your  credulity,  that  you  may  draw 
on  it  from  time  to  time,  like  a  man  taking 
a  pinch  of  snuff. 

"I  do  not  know  how  far  I  should  go  back, 
perhaps  even  to  the  day  when  Ruth,  in  a  wild 
state  of  reckless  misery,  ran  away  with  Raw- 
don  Westmacott.  At  once,  you  see,  I  am  up 
against  the  question  of  their  relationship,  and 
you  will  understand  that,  situated  as  I  now 
am  with  regard  to  Ruth,  it  isn't  a  question 
I  like  to  dwell  upon.  There  is  a  certain  fel- 
lowship, however,  between  us,  Ruth,  Rawdon, 
and  I,  and  when  I  consider  that  fellowship, 
my  resentment — I  will  go  further  than  that, 
and  call  it  my  loathing,  my  disgust — bends 
down  like  a  springing  stick  and  lies  flat  to 
the  ground.  By  fellowship  I  mean,  in  myself, 
the  restless  spirit  which  drove  me  onward 
until,  blinded  by  the  habit  of  constant  move- 
ment, I  couldn't  see  the  riches  that  lay  close 
to  my  hand.  In  Ruth  and  Rawdon,  I  mean 


HERITAGE  301 

the  passionate  spirit  that  was  the  heritage  of 
their  common  blood,  and  that  drew  them  to- 
gether even  when  she,  by  an  accident  of  dis- 
like, would  have  stood  apart.  We  talk  very 
glibly  of  love  and  indifference,  but,  believe 
me,  it  is  largely,  if  it  doesn't  come  by  sudden 
revelation,  a  question  of  accident,  of  sugges- 
tion. It  simply  didn't  occur  to  me  that  I 
might  be  in  love  with  Ruth ;  I  didn't  examine 
the  question.  So  I  never  knew.  .  .  .  And 
she,  on  her  part,  was  there,  young,  southern, 
trembling  on  the  brink  of  mysteries,  pursued 
by  Rawdon,  whose  character  and  mentality 
she  disliked,  from  whom  she,  afraid,  wanted 
to  fly,  and  in  whose  arms  she  nevertheless 
felt  convinced  that  she  must  end.  From 
this  I  might  have  saved  her.  I  see  her  now, 
a  hunted  creature,  turning  her  despairing 
eyes  on  me,  for  a  brief  space  seeking  a  refuge 
with  Leslie  Dymock,  but  finally  trapped, 
captured,  yielding — yielding  herself  to  a 
storm  of  passion  that  something  uncontrol- 
lable in  her  own  nature  rose  up  to  meet. 

"Seeing  her  in  this  light,  I  am  overcome, 
not  only  with  my  stupidity  and  blindness,  but 
with  my  guilt.  Yet  she  was  not  altogether 
unhappy.  It  is  true  that  Rawdon  ill-treated 


302  HERITAGE 

and  was  unfaithful  to  her  almost  from  the 
first,  but  it  is  also  true  that  in  their  moments 
of  reconciliation,  which  were  as  frequent  as 
their  estrangements,  that  is  to  say,  very  fre- 
quent indeed — in  these  moments  of  recon- 
ciliation she  found  consolation  in  the  renewal 
of  their  curiously  satisfying  communion.  I 
don't  pretend  to  understand  this.  Ruth  loved 
me — she  has  told  me  so,  and  I  know,  without 
argument,  that  she  is  speaking  the  truth — yet 
she  found  pleasure  in  the  love  of  another 
man,  and  even  a  certain  grim  pleasure  in  his 
ill-treatment  of  her.  Or  should  I  reverse  my 
order,  finding  more  marvel  in  her  humility 
under  his  caresses  than  under  his  blows? 

"What  am  I  to  believe?  that  she  is  cursed 
with  a  dual  nature,  the  one  coarse  and  un- 
bridled, the  other  delicate,  conventional,  prac- 
tical, motherly,  refined?  Have  I  hit  the  nail 
on  the  head?  And  is  it,  can  it  be,  the  result 
of  the  separate,  antagonistic  strains  in  her 
blood,  the  southern  and  the  northern  legacy? 
Did  she  love  Westmacott  with  the  one,  and 
me  with  the  other?  I  am  afraid  to  pry 
deeper  into  this  mystery,  for  who  can  tell 
what  taint  of  his  blood  may  not  appear  sud- 
denly to  stain  the  clear  waters  of  his  life? 


HERITAGE  303 

"This,  then,  is  Ruth,  but  in  Westmacott 
the  southern  strain  seems  to  be  dominant; 
the  clear  English  waters  are  tainted  through 
and  through.  He  is  a  creature  of  pure 
instinct,  and  when  his  instinct  is  aroused  no 
logic,  no  reason  will  hold  him,  any  more  than 
a  silk  ribbon  will  hold  a  bucking  horse.  Ruth 
has  told  me  of  her  life  with  him  after  he  had 
gained  possession  of  her,  all  his  humility 
gone,  changed  into  a  domineering  brutality; 
sometimes  he  would  sit  sulkily  for  hours, 
smoking  and  playing  cards,  and  then  would 
catch  her  to  him  and  half  strangle  her  with 
his  kisses.  She  seems  to  have  lived  with  him, 
the  spirit  crushed  from  her,  meek  and  sub- 
missive to  his  will.  I  remembered  the  days 
when  he  used  to  lounge  about  Pennistans', 
leaning  against  the  doorpost  staring  at  her, 
and  when  she  in  disdain  and  contempt  would 
clatter  her  milk-pans  while  singing  at  the  top 
of  her  voice.  Westmacott,  I  thought  grimly, 
had  had  his  own  revenge. 

"Once,  as  you  know,  she  rebelled,  but  I 
do  not  think  you  know  what  drove  her  to  it. 
Westmacott  had  brought  another  woman 
home  to  the  farm,  and  had  ordered  his  wife 
to  draw  cider  for  them  both.  When  she 


304  HERITAGE 

refused,  he  struck  her  so  that  she  staggered 
and  fell  in  a  corner  of  the  room.  She  then 
collected  her  children  and  walked  straight 
over  to  her  father's  house.  How  she  tried 
to  shoot  Westmacott  you  know,  for  you  were 
there. — I  can't  think  about  that  story. 

"But  to  come  down  to  the  day  I  went  to 
the  farm  and  asked  her  to  come  away  with 
me.  Westmacott  suspected  nothing  at  the 
time.  About  a  week  later  he  came  home 
slightly  drunk,  and  began  to  bully  one  of 
the  children.  Ruth  cried  out, — 

"  'Hands  off  my  children,  RawdonP 

"  'You  can't  stop  me,'  he  jeered. 

"She  said  — 

*  'I  can.  I  nearly  stopped  you  for  ever 
once,  and  what's  to  prevent  my  doing  it 
again?' 

"He  looked  at  her  blankly,  and  bis  jaw 
dropped. 

"For  a  week  after  that  he  was  civil  to 
her;  their  roles  were  reversed,  and  she  held 
the  upper  hand.  Then  he  started  shouting 
at  her,  but,  brave  in  her  previous  success, 
she  defied  him, — 

'  'Stop  swearing  at  me,  Rawdon,  or  I'll 
go  away  and  leave  you.' 


HERITAGE  305 

"He  roared  with  laughter. 

"'Go  away?     Where  to?' 

"She  says  that  she  was  wild,  and  did  not 
care  for  the  rashness  of  her  words, — 

"'I  shall  go  to  Mr.  Malory.' 

"  'He  wouldn't  have  you!'  said  Rawdon. 

*  'He  would!'  she  cried.  'He  came  here — 
you  never  knew — and  tried  to  get  me  to  go 
with  him.  And  I'd  have  gone,  but  for  the 
children.  So  there!' 

"After  this  there  was  a  pause;  Rawdon 
was  taken  aback,  Ruth  was  appalled  by  her 
indiscretion.  Then  Rawdon  burst  out  into 
oaths,  'which  fouled  the  kitchen,'  said  Ruth, 
'as  though  the  lamp  had  been  flaring.'  At 
this  time,  I  suppose,  I  was  at  Sampiero. 

"Of  course,  these  and  similar  scenes  could 
not  go  on  perpetually.  Their  married  life, 
although  long  in  years,  had  been  interrupted 
by  over  four  years  of  war  and  absence,  but 
now  they  found  that  they  must  settle  down 
to  life  on  a  workable  basis.  They  were 
married,  therefore  they  must  live  together 
and  make  the  best  of  it.  Ruth  tells  me  that 
they  talked  it  out  seriously  together.  A 
strange  conversation!  She  undertook  not  to 
resent  his  infidelities  if  he,  on  his  side,  would 


306  HERITAGE 

undertake  not  to  ill-treat  her  at  home.  So 
they  sealed  this  compact,  and  in  the  course 
of  time  sank  down,  as  the  houses  of  the 
neighbourhood  sank  down  into  the  clay,  into 
a  situation  of  no  greater  discontent  than 
many  of  their  prototypes. 

"There  was  apparently  no  reason  why 
this  should  not  go  on  for  ever.  It  did, 
indeed,  let  me  tell  you  at  once,  go  on  for 
nearly  ten  years.  They  were  quite  tolerably 
happy;  their  children  grew;  their  farm  pros- 
pered; they  were  able  to  keep  a  servant. 
And  then  she  saw  a  change  coming  over 
her  husband. 

"This  is  the  thing  which  I  do  not  expect 
you  to  believe. 

"It  began  with  his  suggestion  that  Ruth 
should  occupy  the  larger  bedroom  with  the 
younger  children,  while  he  himself  moved  up 
to  an  attic  at  the  top  of  the  house,  next  to 
the  boys'  attic.  She  was  astonished  at  this 
suggestion,  and  naturally  asked  him  for  his 
reasons.  He  could  give  none,  except  that 
it  would  be  'more  convenient.'  He  shuffled 
uneasily  as  he  said  it.  For  the  sake  of 
peace,  she  agreed. 

"But,    suspicious    now,    she    watched    him 


HERITAGE  307 

closely,  and  he,  realising  that  she  was  watch- 
ing him,  tried  to  writhe  away  from  her 
vigilance.  He  would  invent  excuses  to 
absent  himself  all  day  from  the  farm — a  dis- 
tant market,  a  local  show — and  would  return 
late  at  night,  creeping  unheard  up  to  his 
attic,  there  to  slip  off  his  clothes  in  the  dark, 
or  with  the  moonlight  streaming  in  through 
his  little  latticed,  dormer  window.  So  for 
days  he  would  contrive  to  meet  his  wife  only 
at  breakfast.  His  excuses  were  always  con- 
vincing, and  in  them  she  could  find  no 
flaw.  She  might  not  have  noticed  his 
strange  behaviour,  but  for  the  incident  of 
the  re-arranged  bedrooms,  and  perhaps  some 
feminine  instinct  which  had  stirred  in  her. 
She  dared  not  question  him,  fearing  a  scene, 
but  gradually  she  came  to  the  not  unnatural 
conclusion  that  he  was  keeping  a  second 
establishment  where  he  spent  most  of  his 
time. 

"This  left  her  indifferent;  she  had  long 
since  made  her  life  independent  of  his,  and 
the  possible  gossip  of  neighbours  did  not 
touch  her  as  it  would  have  touched  a  woman 
of  commoner  fibre.  She  had  quite  made  up 
her  mind  that  Rawdon  spent  all  his  nights 


308  HERITAGE 

away  from  home,  returning  shortly  before 
she  awoke  in  the  morning.  She  did  not 
resent  this,  especially  as  he  had  shown  him- 
self much  gentler  towards  her  of  late.  She 
was  even  vaguely  sorry  for  him,  that  he 
should  take  so  much  trouble  to  conceal  his 
movements.  It  must  be  very  wet,  walking 
through  the  long  dewy  grass  of  the  fields 
so  early  in  the  morning. 

"She  was  surprised  to  notice  that  his 
boots  were  never  soaked  through,  as  she 
logically  expected  to  find  them. 

"One  night  she  lay  awake,  thinking  over 
all  these  things,  when  an  impulse  came  to 
her,  to  go  and  look  in  his  room.  She  got 
up  quietly,  slipping  on  her  shoes  and  dress- 
ing gown,  and  stole  out  on  to  the  landing. 
The  house  was  dark  and  silent.  She  crept 
upstairs,  and  turned  the  handle  of  his  door, 
confident  that  she  would  find  the  room 
empty.  By  the  light  of  the  moon,  which 
poured  down  unimpeded  by  any  curtain 
through  the  little  oblong  window  in  the 
sloping  roof,  she  saw  her  husband's  dark, 
beautiful  head  on  the  white  pillow.  He  was 
sleeping  profoundly.  His  clothes  lay  scat- 


HERITAGE  309 

tered    about    the    floor,    as    he    had    thrown 
them  off. 

"So  surprised  was  she — a  surprise  amount- 
ing, not  to  relief,  but  almost  to  dismay- 
that  she  stood  gazing  at  him,  holding  the 
door  open  with  her  hand.  Sensitive  people 
and  children  will  often  wake  under  the 
influence  of  a  prolonged  gaze.  Westmacott, 
who  was  a  sensitive  man  beneath  his  bru- 
tality, and  who  further  was  living  just  then, 
I  imagine,  in  a  state  of  considerable  nerve 
tension,  woke  abruptly  with  an  involuntary 
cry  as  from  a  nightmare.  He  sat  up  in 
bed,  flinging  back  the  clothes — sat  up,  Ruth 
says,  with  staring  eyes  and  the  signs  of 
terror  stamped  on  all  his  features. 

'You!  you!'  he  said  wildly,  'what  do  you 
want  with  me?  in  God's  name  what  do  you 
want?' 

"She  thought  him  still  half -asleep,  and 
replied  in  a  soothing  voice, — 

"'It's  all  right,  Rawdon;  I  don't  want 
anything;  I  couldn't  sleep,  that's  all;  I'm 
going  away  now.' 

"But  he  continued  to  stare  at  her  as 
though  she  had  been  an  apparition,  mutter- 


310  HERITAGE 

ing  incomprehensibly,  and  passing  his  hand 
with  a  wild  gesture  over  his  hair. 

"  'What's  the  matter,  Rawdon?'  she  said, 
genuinely  puzzled. 

"At  that  he  cried  out, — 

"  'Oh,  go  away,  leave  me  alone,  for  God's 
sake  leave  me  alone!'  and  he  began  to  sob 
hysterically,  hiding  his  face  in  his  sheets. 

"Afraid  that  he  would  wake  the  children, 
she  backed  hastily  out,  shutting  the  door, 
and  flying  downstairs  to  her  own  room. 

"He  did  not  come  to  breakfast,  but  at 
midday  he  appeared,  white  and  hollow-eyed, 
and  climbed  to  his  room,  where  he  spent  an 
hour  screwing  a  bolt  on  to  the  inside  of  his 
door.  When  he  came  down  again,  he  tried 
to  slip  furtively  out  of  the  house,  but  she 
'stopped  him  in  the  passage. 

*  'Look  here,  Rawdon,'  she  said,  taking  him 
by  the  shoulders,  'what's  the  matter  with  you?' 

"He  shrank  miserably  under  her  touch. 

"  'There's  nothing  the  matter,'  he  mum- 
bled. 

"Then  he  spoke  in  a  tone  she  had  never 
heard  since  the  days  before  their  marriage, 
a  cringing,  whining  tone. 

"  'Let  me  be,  Ruth,  my  pretty  little  Ruth; 


HERITAGE  311 

I'm  up  to  no  wrong,  I  promise  you.  Be 
kind  to  your  poor  Rawdon,  darling,'  and 
he  tried  to  kiss  her. 

"But  instantly  with  his  servility  she  re- 
gained her  disdain  of  him.  She  pushed  him 
roughly  from  her. 

"'Get  out  then;  don't  bother  me.' 

"He  went,  swiftly,  thankfully. 

"The  furtiveness  which  she  had  already 
noticed  clung  to  him;  he  slunk  about  like  a 
Jew,  watching  her  covertly,  answering  her, 
when  she  spoke,  in  his  low,  propitiatory 
voice.  She  had  lost  all  fear  of  him  now. 
She  ordered  him  about  in  a  peremptory  way, 
and  he  obeyed  her,  sulkily,  surlily,  when  she 
was  not  looking,  but  with  obsequious  alacrity 
when  her  eyes  were  on  him.  His  chief 
desire  seemed  to  be  to  get  out  of  her  sight, 
out  of  her  company.  He  moved  noiselessly 
about  the  house,  seeking  to  conceal  his  pres- 
ence; 'pussy-footed,'  was  the  word  she  used. 
Their  relations  were  entirely  reversed.  With 
the  acquiescent  philosophy  of  the  poor,  she 
had  almost  ceased  to  wonder  at  the  new 
state  of  affairs  thus  mysteriously  come  about. 
She  dated  it  from  the  day  he  had  first 
taken  to  the  attic,  realising  also  that  a  great 


312  HERITAGE 

leap  forward  had  been  made  from  the  hour 
of  her  midnight  visit  to  his  bedroom.  He 
was  an  altered  being.  From  time  to  time 
he  tried  to  defy  her,  to  reassert  himself,  but 
she  held  firm,  and  he  slid  back  again  to  his 
cowed  manner.  She  became  aware  that  he 
was  afraid  of  her,  though  the  knowledge 
neither  surprised  nor  startled  her  overmuch. 
She  merely  accepted  it  into  her  scheme  of 
life.  She  was  also  perfectly  prepared  that 
one  day  he  should  break  out,  beat  her,  and 
reassume  his  authority  as  master  of  the 
house  and  of  her  person. 

"This,  then,  was  the  position  at  West- 
macotts'  while  I  toiled  at  Ephesus  and  re- 
ceived with  such  wide-spaced  regularity  little 
packets  of  seed  from  Ruth.  The  situation 
developed  rapidly  at  a  date  corresponding 
to  the  time  when  MacPherson  fell  ill  with 
cholera.  It  was  then  three  months  since 
Westmacott,  by  going  to  the  attic,  had  made 
the  first  concession  to  his  creeping  cowardice. 
He  was  looking  ill,  Ruth  told  me;  his  eyes 
were  bright,  and  she  thought  he  slept  badly 
at  night.  Her  questioning  him  on  this  sub- 
ject precipitated  the  crisis. 

c  'Rawdon,  you're  looking  feverish.' 


|     HERITAGE  313 

*  'Oh,  no,'  he  said  nervously.  They  were 
at  breakfast. 

"  'Ay,  dad,'  said  the  eldest  boy,  'I  heard 
you  tossing  about  last  night.' 

"Ruth  turned  on  him  with  that  bullying 
instinct  that  she  could  not  control,  and 
asked  roughly, — 

'What  do  you  mean  by  keeping  the  chil- 
dren awake?' 

"He  cowered  away,  and  she  went  on,  her 
voice  rising, — 

'  'I  won't  have  it,  do  you  hear?  If  you 
can't  sleep  quietly  here,  you  can  go  and  sleep 
elsewhere — in  the  stable,  for  all  I  care.' 

"He  didn't  answer,  he  only  watched  her, 
huddled  in  his  chair — yes,  huddled,  that  tall, 
lithe  figure — watched  her  with  a  sidelong 
glance  of  his  almond  eyes. 

"She  went  on  storming  at  him;  she  says 
she  felt  like  a  person  speaking  the  words 
dictated  to  her  by  somebody  else,  and  indeed 
you  know  Ruth  well  enough  to  know  that 
this  description  doesn't  tally  with  your  im- 
pression of  her. 

"He  was  fingering  a  tea-spoon  all  the 
while,  now  looking  down  at  it,  now  stealing 


314  HERITAGE 

that  oblique  glance   at  his   wife,   but  never 
saying  a  word.     She  cried  to  him,— 

"  'Let  that  spoon  alone,  can't  you?'  and  as 
she  spoke  she  stretched  out  her  hand  to  take 
it  from  him.  He  bent  swiftly  forward  and 
snapped  at  her  hand  like  a  hungry  wolf. 

"The  children  screamed,  and  Ruth  sprang 
to  her  feet.  Rawdon  was  already  on  his 
feet,  over  in  the  corner,  holding  a  chair, 
reversed,  in  front  of  him. 

"  'Don't  you  come  near  me,'  he  gibbered, 
cdon't  you  dare  to  come  near  me.  You 
said  you  nearly  stopped  me  once ' — oh  little 
seed  sown  ten  years  ago! — 'but  by  Hell  you 
shan't  do  it  again.  I'll  kill  you  first,  ay, 
and  all  your  children  with  you,  cursed  brats! 
how  am  I  to  know  they're  mine?'  and  a 
stream  of  foul  language  followed. 

"Ruth  had  recovered  herself,  she  stood  on 
the  other  side  of  the  room,  with  all  her 
frightened  children  clinging  round  her. 

'  'I  think  you  must  be  mad,  Rawdon,'  she 
said,  as  coldly  as  she  could. 

'  'And  if  I  am,'  he  cried,  'who's  driven 
me  to  it?  Isn't  it  you?  making  my  life  a 
hell,  spying  on  me,  chasing  me  even  to  my 
bed  at  night,  ready  to  pounce  on  me  the 


HERITAGE  315 

moment  you  get  a  chance?  Oh,  you  hate 
me,  I  know;  it's  that  other  man  you  want, 
you've  had  your  fill  of  me.  Oh,  you  false, 
lying  vixen,  you're  just  waiting  till  you  can 
get  me — catch  me  asleep,  likely;  what  was 
you  doing  in  my  room  that  night?  The 
woman  who  can  shoot  at  a  man  once  can 
shoot  at  him  twice.  Mad,  you  say  I  am? 
No,  I'm  not  mad,  but  'tis  not  your  fault 
that  I  wasn't  mad  long  ago.' 

"The  eldest  boy  darted  across  the  room 
at  his  father,  but  Rawdon  warded  him  off 
with  the  chair. 

"  'Keep  the  brat  off  me!'  he  cried  to  Ruth. 
'I  won't  be  answerable,  I'll  do  him  a  mis- 
chief.' 

"He  cried  suddenly, — 

"'This  is  what  I'll  do  if  you  try  to  lay 
hands  on  me,  you  and  all  your  brood.' 

"He  was  near  the  window,  he  took  the 
pots  of  geranium  one  by  one  off  the  sill, 
crying,  'This!  and  this!  and  this!'  and  flung 
them  with  all  possible  violence  on  the  tiled 
floor,  where  the  brittle  terra-cotta  smashed 
into  fragments,  and  the  plants  rolled  with  a 
scattering  of  earth  under  the  furniture. 


316  HERITAGE 

"Til  do  that  with  your  heads,'  he  said 
savagely. 

"His  eye  fell  on  the  cage  of  mice,  left 
standing  exposed  on  the  window-sill.  At  the 
sight  of  these  his  rage  redoubled. 

fffHe  gave  you  these,'  he  shouted,  and 
hurled  the  cage  from  him  into  the  farthest 
corner  of  the  room. 

"He  was  left  quivering  in  the  midst  of  his 
devastation,  quivering,  panting,  like  some 
slim,  wild  animal  at  bay. 

"The  storm  that  had  swept  across  him 
was  too  much  for  his  nerves;  the  expression 
on  his  face  changed;  he  sank  down  in  the 
corner,  letting  the  chair  fall,  and  hiding  his 
face  in  his  hands. 

"  'There,  it's  over,'  he  wailed,  'don't  be 
afraid,  Ruth,  I  won't  touch  you.  Only  let 
me  go  away  now;  it's  this  life  has  done  for 
me.  I  can't  live  with  you.  You  can  keep 
the  children,  you  can  keep  the  farm;  I'm 
going  away,  right  away,  where  you'll  never 
hear  of  me  again.  Only  let  me  go.' 

"It  seemed  to  be  his  dominating  idea. 

"She  moved  across  to  him,  but  he  leaped 
up  and  to  one  side  before  she  could  touch 
him. 


HERITAGE  317 

6  'Keep  away!'  he  cried  warningly. 

"He  reached  the  door;  paused  there  one 
brief,  intense  moment. 

"  'You'll  hear  from  me  from  London,'  he 
uttered. 

"He  seemed  to  her  exactly  like  a  swift 
animal,  scared  and  untamed,  checked  for  one 
instant  in  its  flight. 

"  'I'll  never  trouble  you  more.' 

"Then  he  was  gone;  had  he  bounded 
away?  had  he  flown?  she  could  not  have 
said,  she  could  only  remain  pressed  against 
the  wall,  the  children  crying,  and  her  hands 
clasped  over  her  heart. 

"There,  what  do  you  think  of  that  for  the 
story  of  a  Kentish  farm-house?  What  a 
train  of  dynamite,  isn't  it,  laid  in  the  arena 
of  Cadiz?  What  a  heritage  to  transmit  even 
to  the  third  generation!  You  don't  believe 
it?  I  thought  you  wouldn't.  But  it  is  true. 

"Ruth  told  me  the  whole  of  this  amazing 
story  in  a  low  voice,  playing  all  the  while 
with  her  two  faded  roses.  She  showed  me 
a  lawyer's  letter  which  she  had  received  next 
day,  formalising  the  agreement  about  the 
farm,  stipulating  that  she  should  pay  rent; 


318  HERITAGE 

all  couched  in  cold,  business-like  terms.  'Our 
client,  Rawdon  Westmacott,  Esq.,'  that  sav- 
age, half -crazed,  screaming  creature  that  had 
smashed  the  flower-pots  only  a  week  be- 
fore. .  .  . 

"  'I  see  you've  replaced  the  geraniums,'  I 
said  rather  irrelevantly. 

"  'Yes.' 

"  'What  about  the  mice?' 

"  'They  all  died.' 

"So  that  chapter  was  closed? 

"  'At  any  rate,  Ruth,  you  need  not  worry 
now  about  your  children.' 

"She  looked  puzzled. 

"  'Never  mind,  I  was  only  joking.' 

"Then  we  were  quite  silent,  faced  with  the 
future.  I  said  slowly. 

"  'And  you  brought  me  down  here  to  tell 
me  all  this?' 

"  'Yes.  I  am  sorry  if  you  are  annoyed.' 
'  'I  am  not  annoyed,  but  it  is  late  and  I 
must  go  back  to  London  to-night.' 

"She  came  a  little  closer  to  me,  and  my 
pulses  began  to  race. 

"'Why?' 

"  'Well,  my  dear,  I  can't  stop  here,  can  I?' 

"She  whispered, — 


HERITAGE  319 

"'Why  not?' 

"  'Because  you're  here  alone,  even  the  chil- 
dren are  away.' 

"  'Does  that  matter?'  she  said. 

"A  ray  from  the  setting  sun  slanted  in  at 
the  window,  firing  the  red  geraniums,  and 
the  canary  incontinently  began  to  sing. 

'You  came  here  once,'  said  Ruth,  'and 
you  asked  me  to  go  away  and  live  with  you. 
Do  you  remember?' 

"  'My  dear,'  I  said,  'I  have  lived  on  that 
remembrance  for  the  last  ten  years.' 

"I  waited  for  her  to  speak  again,  but  she 
remained  silent,  yet  her  meaning  was  clearer 
to  me  than  the  spoken  word.  We  stood 
silent  in  the  presence  of  her  invitation  and 
of  my  acquiescence.  We  stood  in  the  warm, 
quiet  kitchen,  where  all  things  glowed  as  in 
the  splendour  of  a  mellow  sunset:  the  crim- 
son flowers,  the  sinking  fire,  the  rounded 
copper  of  utensils,  the  tiled  floor  rosy  as  a 
pippin.  In  the  distance  I  heard  the  lowing 
of  cattle,  rich  and  melodious  as  the  tones 
within  the  room.  I  saw  and  heard  these 
English  things,  but,  as  a  man  who,  looking 
into  a  mirror,  beholds  his  own  expected 
image  in  an  unexpected  setting,  I  had  a  sud- 


320  HERITAGE 

den  vision  of  ourselves,  standing  side  by 
side  on  the  deck  of  a  ship  that,  to  the  music 
of  many  oars,  glided  majestically  towards 
the  land.  We  were  in  a  broad  gulf,  fairer 
and  more  fruitful  than  the  Gulf  of  Smyrna. 
The  water  lay  serenely  around  us,  heaving 
slightly,  but  unbroken  by  the  passage  of  our 
vessel,  and  the  voices  of  the  rowers  on  the 
lower  deck  rose  up  in  a  cadenced  volume  of 
song  as  we  came  slowly  into  port. 
"Ever  yours, 
"CHRISTOPHER  MALORY." 


' 

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